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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25291027">Luster</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/holysmotez/pseuds/holysmotez'>holysmotez</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Smotez's E-rated Cloti fics [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Andrea is cupid, Angst, Awkwardness, Blow Jobs, Cloti - Freeform, Cunnilingus, E for later chapters, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Honeybee Inn, Honeybee Inn AU, Kissing, Love, Love Confessions, Making Love, Making Out, Mutual Pining, No Don Corneo, No SOLDIER, Oral Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Rating May Change, Reunions, Sexual Tension, What-If, alcohol consumption, and I guess some plot, and lieutenant smutty, general horniness, mostly just idiots remembering that they're in love, my excuse to write about Cloud wearing a honeybox tux, no sephiroth, that's basically it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:40:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,552</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25291027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/holysmotez/pseuds/holysmotez</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud hesitates.  “Perfectly clear, but I’m not sure if I am misunderstanding you. Is there something wrong?”</p><p>Andrea tilts his chin, humming with disapproval.  “Not wrong, no.  More like...Something’s off.  Or rather, I’d say it is missing.  It’s been on my mind for a while now, and it’s more troubling to see that it may not have even crossed yours.”</p><p>Cloud’s stomach drops for the second time that evening.  “Are-, are you unhappy with my work?”</p><p>“It’s not your work.  Your work is exemplary.  Rather it’s your...dazzle?” He unlaces one of his fingers to tap against his lip.  “Yes, that’s it.”<br/>-----<br/>AKA an AU where instead of working for Shinra at all, Cloud instead found a career working for Andrea Rhodea at the Honeybee Inn.  A career that might come to a quick end, however, after Andrea issues him an ultimatum.  His life at the Inn complicates even further when there's something familiar about the lady technician who shows up the next day to fix the water filter...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Smotez's E-rated Cloti fics [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1887094</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>159</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Seriously, this fic idea spawned solely from imagining Cloud and Tifa in a honeyboy tux.  While there will be room for some angst, this AU will be much, MUCH lighter in its tone as compared to the game; there will be no Sephiroth, no SOLDIER, no Cloud getting fucked up by Hojo.  If you're still reading, awesome, and I hope you'll enjoy what I've got in mind...</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p></p><div class="center">
  <p> </p>
  <p>    <br/></p>
</div><div class="center">
  <p>Art by the amazing <a href="https://twitter.com/szajnie">szajnie</a>!  Used with permission</p>
</div></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gold shimmers off of his ass and thighs, his trousers snug and glistening like candy wrapper.  He rotates towards the body mirror, checking for any stain, tear, or blemish.  The gold laces of his black dress shoes match in their sparkle as he pivots to and fro, without a scuff on them to be seen.</p><p>His bottom half looks as if he had been dipped in honey, and thus satisfied, he moves on to his cream-colored dress shirt, pouring it over his hardened chest.  Over that, he layers on the dark ganache of his vest, lined and trimmed with gold.  His fingers stroke up the myriad buttons, smoothing over their alignment before trailing up to his glittering gold bow tie.  He ties it snug - though not too snug - around his collar before fastening his golden, honeybee-shaped cufflinks.  </p><p>That done, he shifts again, studying his reflection in the mirror.  He already looks good enough to unwrap and pop on someone’s mouth— but still not quite tempting enough.  He sweetens the pot with a refresh of make-up: dabs of concealer; strokes of gold mascara for the tips of his lashes; another swipe of gloss across his bottom lip.  He presses his lips together, smearing it until his lips plump and glitter with gold.</p><p>Meanwhile, the din outside the dressing room surges, and he sighs at his reflection.  </p><p>Like an incoming tide, and with no such thing as a slow night, the growing cacophony of footfalls and voices from guests flood the halls.  The shift from afternoon into evening had begun, and meant that the show was due to begin.  He takes his time flexing his fingers through his sugar white gloves, and lastly, he fusses with his golden top hat, shifting it toward the back of head, careful not to crush any of his spiky blonde forelocks under its brim.  Now he reflects a properly candied morsel, glistening like a raw honeycomb from head to toe and laced with dark chocolate, sweet as the most expensive truffle.  </p><p>Squaring his shoulders, and putting on a brave face, he looks back at the man he sees in the mirror with boyish blue eyes.</p><p>He closes them, indulging in the moment of relative calm sheltered from the chaos of his life calling to him from outside the door.  The hat hangs heavier each time he puts it on, and he’s not sure when he started to feel that way.  </p><p>A rap of knuckles beat urgently against the dressing room door.  Pulling him from his meditation, he sighs, unable to justify ignoring his responsibilities any longer.  He crosses the floor in long strides and reaches for the latch.</p><p>“Cloud!  Thank goodness!”</p><p>As he expects, a throng of honeyboys and honeygirls swarm him in the second it takes for him to step out from the door.  As usual, the night at the Honeybee Inn kicks off with a crisis in need of his rescue.  </p><p>The first battle he rides to wages backstage, where panic had already set in with the dance troupe.  There, he learns that the evening’s stage performance teeters on the brink of collapse.  Two of their lead dancers failed to show for dress rehearsal, and still hadn’t appeared now that doors were open.  </p><p>Perhaps a less experienced bee of his position would have broken out into hives in that moment.  Instead, after some improvisation with the line up and a chat with the DJ, the show then proceeds to go off without a hitch.  Easy enough.</p><p>The second battle of the evening summons him out onto the auditorium floor.  Complaints had reached his ears about a handful of loud drunks causing trouble, something about rude remarks and straying hands towards the wait staff.  That sort of shit instantly sets off a wake of fire in his steps.  If they had been unaware of their zero-tolerance policy, he plans to correct that oversight within the next few minutes.</p><p>He grumbles as he beelines for their table like a gilded missile.  Grabby idiots somehow always found a way to land in their honeyed venue like flies.  Just like when he had been a lowly bouncer, without fail, not a single idiot at this table expects a guy like him to be the one to swat them off.  His saccharine smile, graceful build, and the glitz of his tuxedo so often lures these types into forgetting an important fact about bees: that most have stingers, and that they will zealously guard the nest. Honestly, he gets a morbid thrill whenever fools regard him like a flower about to wilt; it satisfies him that much more to knock the dumbass arrogance right off their faces.  </p><p>As such with tonight’s pack of idiots.  They get stung and flung back out into Wall Market, scurrying back under whatever pile of junk they had crawled out of, and thus he disposes his second problem out into the night.</p><p>The third crisis, however, strikes before he even finishes brushing off his gloves.  </p><p>“Cloud!  It’s happened again!”</p><p>Sadie, their head bartender of four years, storms up to him the instant he steps back inside the auditorium, looking like she’s about to blow a blood vessel.  Without warning, she waves something underneath his nose in a furious blur.  He reels, fighting down a full-on gag when the stench of bad eggs floods his nose.  </p><p>“Ugh, what the hell!” he says, pinching his nostrils.  He looks down to see a piece of ice pinched between her fingers.</p><p>“This is the <em>second</em> time in four months we’ve had ice come out smelling like this!  I can’t make any iced drinks right now.  I’m gettin’ killed over here.  You gotta do something, quick!” </p><p>He holds his free hand up, still pinching his nose with the other.   “Alright, alright.  We’ll just make do like we did last time.”</p><p>“Hurry it up, then.  And those corporate sons of bitches are going to hear from me, because I am not dealing with this again!”</p><p>As she tears a path back to perform damage control behind the bar, he turns around and heads back out into the bowels of Wall Market, already holding a silent requiem for the gil in his wallet.  Last time this bullshit happened, other vendors had been more than generous enough to share their ice— rather, they were more than happy after tacking on a hefty “emergency fee”.   Tonight has him shelling out again, and after enduring the chorus of wolf whistles while walking through the neon-soaked streets, he manages to procure several bags of much fresher-smelling ice from a neighboring bar outside the Inn.  The “emergency fee” puts a decent bite in his pocket, but he does rescue Sadie’s night of tips.</p><p>Finally, he rests.  Battles won for the time being, the rare lull settles over him as he leans his elbow against the polished wood of the bar counter.  He relishes the rare moment of respite, observing music and drinks pouring out from every direction, worker honeybees zipping to and fro between tables.  The place is packed, the gil is flowing, and the air thrums with laughter and conversation, their patrons blissfully unaware of all the troubles and mishaps he had thwarted.  For them, it’s another perfect night at Honeybee Inn.  As it should be.  </p><p>He supposes it’s something like pride that swells in his chest in these moments, of seeing his efforts bear fruit, that keep him going in this business.</p><p>Yet after doing this work for so long, he couldn’t shake the dread that the evening was shaping up to be just more of the same shit, night after night.  None of these emergencies ever really got his heart racing.  His fleeting pride always gave way under the crushing weight of the monotony that he couldn’t figure out how to shrug aside.</p><p>He’s <em>bored</em>, as it turns out.  Bored, while smack in the middle of one of the premiere adult entertainment venues in all the world. </p><p>And naturally, it’s the moment he is reflecting on how very, completely ordinary and dull things are, that a honeygirl’s lips touch his ear.  She whispers the few words that, for the first time in recent memory, makes his gut drop straight to the center of the planet.</p><p>
  <em>Andrea wants to see you.</em>
</p><p>Even for a bee in his position, the rarity of a personal request from his eternally-busy boss could not be overstated.  Whatever the reason, regardless of whether your bee-striped ass was on stage or in a private room with a client, protocol dictates that you drop everything and appear at his office door as asked.</p><p>Thusly galvanized from his perch, Cloud hurries from the auditorium to the staircase behind reception in the lobby.  As he turns the corner up the stairs, the plush carpet muffling his footfalls, he does what he can to straighten out his bow tie and smooth over the shoulders of his cream shirt.  When he stops at Andrea’s office door, he checks and checks again that his tie is straight and his shoelaces are tied.  Only then does he knock.</p><p>“Come in,” answers him. </p><p>Cloud enters, his golden top hat wedged underneath his arm.  He moves further inside the office only when invited to sit in the plush guest chair in front of Andrea’s desk.  Andrea himself reclines on his high-backed throne, his heels propped up on the edge of his desk.  His fingers thread together under his chin as he seems to ponder the arrival of his favored employee.  </p><p>Several awkward seconds tick by without a sound between them.  Cloud fidgets under Andrea’s piercing stare, and after clearing his throat, he says, “You wanted to see me?”</p><p>Andrea answers immediately.  “Yes.  I have a very important question for you, and I expect you to be completely honest with me.  How are you doing, Cloud?”</p><p>“Sir?”</p><p>“You know how I abhor repeating myself.”</p><p>“I’m...doing fine, I guess. But what’s the matter that you wished to discuss?”</p><p>The corner of Andrea’s lip ticks up from behind his laced fingers.  “This is the matter. Your well-being is important to me, as it is for all my honeybees, which is why I insist that you take my question seriously.  Well?””</p><p>Cloud leans back into the cushions, puzzled.  “I’d still say I have been taking care of myself just fine.”</p><p>“Have you?”</p><p>“Nothing I can’t handle.”</p><p>Andrea’s expression darkens.  “Was I not clear that you were to be honest with me?”</p><p>Cloud hesitates.  “Perfectly clear, but I’m not sure if I am misunderstanding you. Is there something wrong?”</p><p>Andrea tilts his chin, humming with disapproval.  “Not wrong, no.  More like...Something’s off.  Or rather, I’d say it is <em>missing</em>.  It’s been on my mind for a while now, and it’s more troubling to see that it may not have even crossed yours.”</p><p>Cloud’s stomach drops for the second time that evening.  “Are-, are you unhappy with my work?”</p><p>“It’s not your work.  Your work is exemplary.  Rather it’s your...dazzle?” He unlaces one of his fingers to tap against his lip.  “Yes, that’s it.”</p><p>Cloud looks down at himself, frowning.  He made sure that not a thread of his outfit is out of place.  </p><p>Andrea sighs, pulling his feet off the desk and leaning forward on it with his elbows.  “Don’t play the idiot with me, Cloud. There’s of course the dazzle that you wear.  Perfection itself, that.  But that pales against a dazzle of spirit, or lack thereof.  I hoped that perhaps you might find yours here eventually after I lifted you up from obscurity, but now I’m beginning to worry that even life at the Honeybee Inn can’t persuade you to fully unveil your luster.”</p><p>Cloud sits in baffled silence, hackles rising.  Words come and fall away until eventually, he settles on, “I’m...I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do about that.”</p><p>Andrea leans back, drumming his fingers.  “If I may offer a suggestion, then?”</p><p>”Please.”</p><p>Andrea nods.  “As you know, what I offer here at the Honeybee Inn is a place for what we as individually and collectively beautiful creatures crave.  Connection, and companionship.  There is something missing, then, when one of my honeybees, especially a royal one such as yourself, appears lacking in either of those things.”</p><p>Cloud turns it over in his head, then frowns.  “Wait. You’re concerned because I’m single?  Is that it?”</p><p>Andrea scoffs, smiling.  “It’s not just about what I think.  But connection is the key to the vault of one’s heart.  Wouldn’t you agree that one’s treasure is worthless if they keep it locked up forever, unwilling to share it?  Or are you perhaps saving it for someone you have in mind already?”</p><p>Cloud’s chest constricts around the question.  <em>Someone already in mind?</em></p><p>Garnet-colored eyes and flowing chestnut hair burst across his imagination, invasive and making his chest clench.  The second her full face flashes through Cloud’s mind, he flinches, his eyes dropping to the floor.  </p><p>It was the exact wrong move to make, because Andrea laughs and says, “I see now.  This won’t do, then.  Cloud, I’m giving you a week.  Come to terms with what’s in your heart, however raw and hideous it may be.  Figure out what you need to connect and to shine forth, and I will do whatever I can to make sure that you have it.  Otherwise, I will have no choice but to release you from your responsibilities here until you do.”</p><p>Cloud jerks his head up.  “What?  You’re going to let me go over this?”</p><p>Andrea shrugs, though his expression remains somber.  “As you well know, the Honeybee Inn’s success has much to do with the high standards we adhere to.  And my standard is that while you serve as my royal bee, that you light up the room with your mere presence and energy, and not just with your appearance and talents. You have one week to find your dazzle.  Is that understood?”</p><p>Not knowing what else to say, Cloud tells him, “Yes, sir.” </p><p>“Good.  Now take your leave.”</p><p>It’s one instruction Cloud does not need to be told twice as he bolts from Andrea’s office, only held back enough as to not be disrespectful.  But as soon as the door clicks shut behind him, he tugs loose the bowtie and practically rips off his vest as he stomps down the stairs.  Honeyboys and girls greet him sweetly, but he whistles past them like a throwing knife, having nothing left to say to anyone.  The curtain had fallen, and the show was over.</p><p>Back in the dressing room, he hangs his hat and wastes no time wiping the makeup from his face.  After trading in the sheen of his tuxedo for his usual dark, sleeveless shirt and drab, loose trousers, he heads straight for home.  </p><p>Outside, his stormy gait subsides into a spiritless drift as he passes shops and bars pulling down their gates.  Neon blinks out bit by bit, leaving behind only the monochrome wash of mako-fueled street lamps.  After a short trip up the three flights stairs, he arrives at the door of his boxy studio flat.  </p><p>It’s barely a matchbox, with an even smaller washroom off to one side and kitchenette in the corner, but its charm - and most of its price point - comes from how its large window overlooks the thick jungle of Wall Market below.  Admittedly, it’s quite the enchanting view at night, even if he does rarely ever get the opportunity to enjoy it.</p><p>When he kicks his apartment door closed behind him, he heads straight for his washroom.  After cleansing and rinsing his face of residual makeup, he leans forward, scrutinizing himself in the mirror, hairline cracks racing through the edges of the glass.  Not for the first time, he can hardly recognize the scrawny, pimply-faced teen he had been when he first set foot in Midgar.  Almost seven years later, and here he stands a few inches taller, with muscle mass filling in all the right places.  Completion of puberty probably helped him out the most, he supposes, but the changes were especially pronounced ever since Andrea had put him in touch with his personal trainer, Jules.  His complexion had since benefited, too, along with an equally rigorous skincare regimen.</p><p>He <em>lusters</em>, doesn’t he?  Just what the hell did Andrea mean by that, exactly?  How would he know what that even looks like?</p><p>He gives up finding the answer etched on his face when he next proceeds to raid his liquor cabinet.  Straight from the bottle, the first swig burns down his throat, and his thoughts cook off like a box of grenades lit on fire.</p><p><em>What the fuck?</em>  What the fuck was Andrea even talking about?  What the hell did he mean by lighting up a room?  Having treasure locked away?  How was he supposed to understand bullshit riddles like that?  Why not just shoot straight and save everyone else some time?</p><p>How was it not enough for him to show up every night, on time, always clean-pressed and sober?  Then proceed to bust his ass making sure the Honeybee Inn didn’t slide headlong into a shitshow every night?   How was it not enough after being told his work was exemplary?  After working for Andrea for so long, maybe he should have been able to figure out how his boss’ cryptic mind and bullshit standards work by now.  </p><p>Another pull tumbles down his throat, smoother this time.  <em>Shit.</em>  Just what was he supposed to even do without this job?  He was a <em>royal</em> bee, goddamn it.  His compensation allowed him to live like one by upper plate standards, let alone the undercity’s.  He squirreled away most of his excess in savings, but if Andrea fired him, he could certainly kiss his apartment goodbye.  And then what?  Would he stay in Midgar?  <em>Could</em> he stay in Midgar?  He gags at the notion of giving the rest of his life and health for Shinra’s profits working in a mako reactor, and shudders only a little less when he thinks about answering one of Avalanche’s recruitment posters.  Neither option would even come close to the pay he was raking in now to try and make up for the embarrassment of coming to Midgar in the first place.  </p><p>But then again, what amount of money would be enough to bring back home?  How much would it take?  What would be enough treasure to get someone like her to notice?</p><p>No, not like her.  <em>Her.</em>  He may not be the most well-traveled person in the world, but after meeting so many of the countless faces of Midgar, he was still pretty sure there wasn’t anyone who could measure up to her.</p><p><em>Tifa.</em> </p><p>He slumps back on his couch.  Chances were she had simply moved on with her life by now.  Unlike him.  Unlike this idiot who couldn’t seem to grow up and do the same.</p><p>He only takes a few more half-hearted pulls off the bottle before he lets it slip out of his fingers.  He never was good at much, not even putting himself into a numbed-out, drunken stupor.   But the booze in his veins is enough for his thoughts to dissolve into a parade of expletives, which soon serves as his own fucked up lullaby.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The half-empty bottle on the floor definitely explains the mild headache he wakes up with the following morning.  Not for the first time in his life in Midgar, to be sure.  </p><p>Rousing from his couch, he staggers for his kitchenette--  if a waist-high fridge, a two-shelf pantry, and a single hot plate qualifies as one. Judging by the strength of sunlight beaming in through his window, he had slept in fairly late.  With almost the entire morning gone already, he throws open the aforementioned fridge, wincing at the chilly predicament he reveals. </p><p><em>Damn.</em>  He put off grocery shopping for too long again.  He wishes it were just his hunger pangs making him wince, but rather he hates how the sight of an empty fridge never fails to make him a touch homesick.   The gentle echo of his mom’s voice needles him in the back of his head, always worried for him in the big city, always saying that he should find someone who can keep him righted on the wagon and well out of trouble.  </p><p>He snorts.  So much for that.</p><p>He’s got a few eggs and bottles of water tucked inside the door.  He snatches up one of the latter, <em>Promised Land Springs</em> branded on its label.  Downing half of it in one go, he whispers a <em>thank you, Gaia</em> when he locates a tin of instant coffee in his similarly bare pantry.</p><p>Eventually, he musters the courage to drag himself back into his washroom.  Here, instead of the imaginary fussings of his mother, the harsher echo of Andrea’s voice invades his thoughts.</p><p>
  <em>Unveil your luster, Cloud.</em>
</p><p>The mirror confirms that he looks exactly like the way he feels: like utter shit.  His dark circles and waxen complexion force him to take back his earlier thoughts from last night.  <em>Definitely no luster here to speak of.  </em></p><p>He splashes cool water over his face.  After putting a coat of fresh makeup over the dark circles under his eyes, and putting some much needed caffeine in his system, at least he could say he looks almost normal again.</p><p>His conscience prickles him again about grocery shopping for that afternoon, but a glance in his wallet reminded him he spent most of his cash on ice last night.  So instead, he finds himself back at the Inn, already dressed for work save for his gold bowtie he left to dangle loosely around his collar.  Opening is hours away still, but the refuge of Honeybee Inn’s cavernous auditorium and the well-stocked bar he had rescued last night is too tempting to resist, and seems like a much better waste of his time.  </p><p>It might be one of the last times he ever gets the opportunity, after all.</p><p>Small spotlights shine overhead and across the well of the bar.  Some of the stage lighting is switched on for the benefit of the day crew, tasked with cleaning and prepping the space ahead of tonight’s opening.   Meanwhile, circles of light from one of the many mirror balls suspended about the arena flutter about the darkened space, like stars spinning across a night sky.  </p><p>Loosening his bow tie further and placing his gilded top hat on the bar counter, he saddles up onto a stool and looks around for Sadie.  He drums his fingers.  Usually she would have arrived by now, doing her own prep work for the night’s service.  With Andrea’s lecture still fresh on his mind, he realizes something rather pathetic: that Sadie might be the closest thing he has to a friend.  If <em>friend</em> were defined as someone who you didn’t really speak with outside of work, and whenever you did, it was rarely about your personal lives. </p><p>How <em>absurd</em> that all sounds in his head.  Oppressive, like a great ball of space rock bearing down on him.  After years of managing one of the most popular venues in Midgar, where all walks of life come through their curtains, he hadn’t met even one other person he could confide in?  That somehow, his life had gotten so miserable that he has the gall to take advantage of Sadie’s professional skills as a last resort, just like every other sad sack who plants themselves on her counter every night?</p><p>As he sits there, being stuck with his own company, feels like he’s closing in on what Andrea meant in his conversation yesterday about connection, but he still doesn’t know what to do about it.  Because frankly, he always kind of hated other people.  </p><p>No, that’s not quite right.  He doesn’t <em>hate</em>-hate people.  Rather, he hates having to feel like he needs to compromise himself and manage down his expectations, because let’s face it: few people measure up.  And with the shit he deals with every single night, he could confidently say that most people didn’t even care to try. He hates that by having standards at all, that somehow makes <em>him</em> the asshole.</p><p><em>Shit.</em>  Where <em>is</em> Sadie, anyway?  </p><p>Not a soul seemed to be attending the bar whatsoever.  His eyes rove across the wall of liquor bottles, and he shrugs.  If it’s his last week as a honeybee, then to hell with it.  He’ll pour his own drink while he wallows in his self-pity.</p><p>Just as he is about to push out his chair, a clatter comes from behind the bar.  </p><p>He freezes, his ears perking.  Metal rattles against metal.  He determines that the noise is coming not so much from behind the bar, but underneath it.</p><p>“Sadie?” he asks.  “That you?”</p><p>“Oh!” </p><p><em>Clang.</em>  The bar counter quakes, and a groan of pain rumbles out.</p><p>“Shit,” Cloud hisses, leaping off of his seat and whirling around into the well of the bar.  “Sadie, I swear to Gaia…”</p><p>He lurches to a halt.  Peering down, he finds a woman tucked underneath the sink, clutching at her head.  A head full of rich, chestnut hair flows from underneath a grey flat cap, the latter of which seems to have fortunately cushioned the blow she just suffered. Her form is frumped with a baggy white shirt and even baggier jean jumper, the back of which is emblazoned: <em>Promised Land Springs.</em></p><p>“You’re not Sadie,” he blurts.</p><p>“No, but I’m fine, thanks for asking,” she grumbles, pivoting where she’s squatted down.  Deep red, wine-colored eyes meet him, and for the second, perhaps third time in the last minute, his breath stops.</p><p>She looks just as shocked, and not just for being struck on her head.</p><p>That hair, those eyes, that voice….</p><p>“Uh, um-“ he manages like the smooth, professional honeybee that he is.</p><p>Slowly, she lowers her hand from where it had been rubbing at the lump she took to her skull, staring up at him with an unreadable expression.  “You startled me.”</p><p>“Sorry.  Uh, and for making you hurt yourself.  Can I get you something for it?” he says.</p><p>“No, thank you.  It’s not that bad, and it’s my mistake for not announcing myself.  I’m just here to change out the water filter, so please don’t mind me.  I’ll be done in a sec.”</p><p>She twists back around, scooping up a small flashlight that she then proceeds to stick between her lips.  She pats the floor, fingers searching until they close around the small spanner lying next to her. Only when she turns back around to him a few seconds later does he realize he’s still been staring at her the whole time.</p><p>She pops the flashlight out of her mouth and says, “Hey, it’s kind of weird for you to be-,”</p><p>“Darling!”</p><p>The sound of Sadie’s voice cuts in across the room, snatching away Cloud’s attention.  He looks up to see her gliding up to the bar towards him.  She looks stunning as usual, even in her plain work clothes, with crimped, raven black hair sweeping just above her shoulders, and her gorgeous brown eyes casting him an appraising look.  She joins him behind the counter, grinning at him, breath laced with fruity lip gloss and her most recent cigarette.  “I missed you last night.  Where did you run off in such a hurry?  I wanted to thank you, but you left us to close up without even a goodbye. Oh?”</p><p>When Sadie’s eyes fall onto the brown-haired technician and her uniformed jumper, her face twists into disdain.  She says, “Finally!  About time they got someone out here.”</p><p>“Yes, I’m almost finished and will be out of your way soon,” the technician replies, wedging in further under the counter with her spanner in hand.</p><p>Sadie turns back to Cloud, inching closer.  “I had to raise some holy hell on the phone to get us on the books for today, so that you won’t have to make another shopping trip tonight for poor ol’ me.” She edges even closer, her eyes darkening.  “Thanks for what you did last night, by the way.  You were my knight in shining armor.”</p><p>Then, she leans up and plants a kiss on his cheek.</p><p>Cloud fights down a flush of embarrassment, turning away. “Cut it out.  Was just doing my job,” he tells her curtly.  Usually he might deflect her a bit more gently, but with the far more intriguing woman still working so close by, his stomach threatens to turn out his earlier coffee onto the floor.</p><p>Sadie huffs, wry smirk on her lip as she returns his space to him.  “And as usual, you’re no fun at all.  Anyway, I want to remind you that this is the second time in four months that they brought us a faulty filter.  One time might be an accident, but twice so soon seems like a pattern, don’t you think?”</p><p>“Maybe,” he hedges.</p><p>The technician extracts herself and stands up, pocketing her tools and wiping her hands on the legs of her jean jumper.  Cloud looks down at the lapel, and comes away disappointed, but not surprised to find her employee ID number etched across it instead of her name:  #31805.</p><p>#31805 replies, “I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, but I would suggest letting our Quality Assurance Team know. Now, I’m all done here, so if you could-,” she extracts a clipboard from one of her jumper’s pockets.  “Please sign here once I’ve tested the output.  It’s merely to acknowledge that I showed up and completed the work.”</p><p>Sadie takes the clipboard and glances over the paperwork.  She says. “Not until we can be assured that this is all gratis.”</p><p>“As I explained, you will have to contact Quality Assurance. I’m sure they would be happy to help resolve-“</p><p>Stepping closer into her space, Sadie says, “Nope.  You want to screw us, and then screw us even more when we gotta sit on the phone waiting for you corporate asshats to give us the time of day?  No thank you.” She pushes the clipboard back against the technician’s chest.  “You all pretend like you’re not, but you’re just another corporate arm of Shinra, anyway. You go back and you tell those pigs that we ain’t payin’ for your broken shit again, you hear me?”</p><p>Cloud starts, “Hey-,”</p><p>Gentle yet firm, the technician replies, “But miss, I can’t leave without your signature-</p><p>“Too bad for you, then.”  She leans back, with a knuckle crooked against her chin.  “On the other hand, maybe we ought to give you a honeygirl outfit.  You’re certainly cute enough, and it would be a serious upgrade over that frumpy-looking thing.  Thank Gaia I don’t have your job.”</p><p>“<em>Hey.</em>”</p><p>Both women turn their attention to Cloud.  He tugs the clipboard out from the technician’s hands.  “I’ll sign it,” he says.  While the both of them gape at him in stunned silence, he takes the opportunity to glance over the sheet plastered on the clipboard, trusting but verifying the technician’s honesty.  </p><p>Sadie objects first. “You sure you want to reward this kind of customer service?  You can’t let them think it’s okay to just walk all over us!”</p><p>He replies, “I’m not <em>rewarding</em> anybody.  She’s telling the truth, looks like.  It’s just a standard boilerplate acknowledgement that she showed up and did the work.  If it’s a bad job, then that’s on her.  Pen?”</p><p>The technician hesitates, saying, “I still have to test it.”</p><p>“I’m sure it’s fine, Miss Three-one-eight-zero-five,” he says, still holding out his hand.</p><p>The technician huffs, amused, but to his disappointment she doesn’t correct him on the moniker.  Wordlessly, she digs for a second before she offers him a pen from her pocket.  He still can’t get over the garnet hue of her eyes, enchanting as rare summon materia.  He tries not to let the lingering contact of their fingers short circuit his faculties further when he removes the pen from her hand and makes a hasty scribble on the dotted line.</p><p>Sadie rolls her eyes, scoffing.  “You know, you can’t fool me.  I saw it all over your face before I called out to you earlier.  You just can’t resist riding to a pretty girl’s rescue, can you?”  </p><p>It’s his turn to huff, pointedly refusing to look over to the technician, fighting down a sudden kick to his pulse, and the heat rising under his collar.  “Whatever.  It’s not her fault her company makes her fix up their bad product, so it’s not right to take it out on her.  She’s just doing her job, like we all do to make it by down here.”</p><p>Sadie’s eyes roll, her eyelashes fluttering as she gestures to him as if she were showing off a curious antique.  “And there he is.  The great big sweetheart underneath all that cat butt.”</p><p>“<em>Cat butt?</em>” Cloud repeats, indignant.</p><p>“Right.  Thank you very much for your understanding,”  the technician says, very professional-like, but he doesn’t miss the way her lip fights to suppress a smile.  </p><p>“You got lucky.  You know, if we get another broken one, then I’ll have to bring this up with Andi,” Sadie says, glancing over to Cloud.</p><p>Cloud tells her, “Be my guest.”</p><p>Sadie takes one more look between the two of them, then says, “Well, while I’d love to take a load off, but I have a few more things I need to do in town before setting up for my shift.  Take it easy, my dashing knight.”</p><p>He huffs, rolling his eyes at her teasing.  “Later, Sadie.”</p><p>She chuckles, returning a playful wink over her shoulder as she departs.  The twinkling lights of the mirror balls continue their lazy spin about the darkened room.  </p><p>“Thanks for intervening,” the technician speaks up, breaking the awkward silence.  “But she’s right, though.  I get the same complaints everywhere I go, and corporate is too big to care.  But just where else are people supposed to get filters?  And why should they need them anyway if Shinra cared at all about their chemicals leaching into the city’s water supply?”  </p><p>She talks, and he can’t stop staring at her as a puzzle he was trying to work out.  It couldn’t really be her, could it?  There was only one other person on Gaia who had her luscious hair, her kind eyes, and warmth in the way she speaks.  It’s all so alarmingly familiar, but what if it’s just the lighting playing tricks?  Or his own wishful thinking wreaking havoc on him?</p><p>She bites her lip, shakes her head.  “Anyway, I should get out of your hair.”</p><p>“You have to?” he blurts, betraying himself, letting a little too much of his desperate thinking slip in to be casual.  Her eyes widen for a half-second, and he wants to kick himself.  </p><p>She says, “Yes, I’m afraid I have another appointment in this sector I need to get to.  But thanks again for your help.”</p><p>She slips past him. Her scent, a hint of plummy sweetness that bursts over the clinging odor of sulfur from her uniform, pulls his sense and reason out of his body, and toward her again.  </p><p>“Wait.”</p><p>She stops, turning.</p><p>It’s as if he’s on the outside looking in on himself when he follows her out from the well of the bar, saying, “Hang on.  We’ve had service calls out here before, but I’ve never seen you before.  You new?”</p><p>“No, but Sector 6 isn’t my usual assignment.” She sighs, looking out across the auditorium.  “She wasn’t really wrong either about Shinra.  They recently acquired a controlling stake in my company, and a lot of senior technicians were laid off.   So I’m absorbing a lot more territory.”</p><p>“And without any improvement as to your situation I take it,” he says.  At another one of her heavy sighs, he quickly adds, “Sorry, not that it’s any of my business.”</p><p>“It’s okay.  It’s just the way corporate is,” she says, and those beautiful eyes cast down towards the floor.</p><p><em>You idiot.  Just leave her alone already</em>, he thinks, but it’s still his lips that are moving as he speaks, his body that reacts, his heart that leaps with the desire to keep her from walking out. “When’s your next appointment?  Can I at least fix you a drink?” </p><p>Regaining herself from whatever dark place she went, she shakes her head. “Look, I’m flattered, really.  But I’m still on the clock, and regardless of what I think, I can’t risk losing this job.”  </p><p>“Then forget the drink, but stay for just a minute.  Please?”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>He swallows.  Gulps down a lump.  His heart, he thinks, the organ lodged somewhere in his throat.  He glances down to her ID number again.  #31805.  “Actually, I just...I just need to know your name.”</p><p>She steps back from him, slowly.  The blush on her cheeks fades into a far more pallid distress.  Voicing his thoughts, she says, “I had a feeling, too...Have we met before?”</p><p>Stupidly, his mouth-gone-rogue curls into a smirk.  “Shouldn’t that be my line?”</p><p>He regrets it the second it flies out of his mouth.  He truly is a goddamned idiot.  She scoffs, rolling her eyes at him, and turning once again on her heel.  </p><p>“Hey, I was just joking!  I’m sorry!” he calls to her, giving chase behind her quick pace out from the auditorium.</p><p>“Please don’t follow me,” she snaps over her shoulder.  Her long hair, bunched at the ends into a loose ponytail, whips about her.</p><p>He lurches in his step like his feet had turned to concrete.  But the sight of her leaving hooks into him like a harpoon, dragging his legs free, and he scorches a path in pursuit of her.  He catches up with her at the reception lobby, bursting through the door and finding the front desk mercifully unoccupied as daylight creeps in under the red curtain only a few paces away.  Her escape imminent, he blurts out the only thing left that might stop her.</p><p>“It’s Tifa, right?” </p><p>She freezes as the back of her hand touches the red curtain. Slowly, she turns about.</p><p>“From Nibelheim,” Cloud adds as he steps closer, eyes fixed on hers.  He notices when they start to shimmer.</p><p>“It can’t...” she whispers, her lips trembling.  “I didn’t...Is it really…?”</p><p>Her eyes glisten as she wonders out loud, and he has the sudden, frightening urge to still her trembling lips with his own.  Because it’s her.  It really is <em>her.</em>  </p><p>“Oh my god,” she whispers, her eyes scouring over him.</p><p>Just as sudden and powerful as his urge to kiss her, he remembers where he is, how he looks.  Embarrassment crashes through him like a river behind a broken dam.   He tears his gaze away from her, overwhelmed by his own stupidity, caught in a familiar torrent of self-loathing, and wishing it would sweep him off into oblivion.</p><p>Despite himself, he still has enough dignity to stand firm, even if he can’t look her in the eye when on his next shaky exhale he admits, “Yeah.”</p><p>This time, she takes a step closer.  He takes a brave glance at her.  Her lip has stopped trembling, her expression unreadable, but altogether sparking yet another harsh throb in his chest.</p><p>Before he can say another word, another voice tumbles down the stairs that makes him wish for oblivion again.  </p><p>“My, and just what do we have here?”  </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for that cliffhanger back there.  I'll try not to do that again...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Andrea slinks down the remaining steps like a gold-flecked panther, eyeing them both with devilish curiosity as he descends to the lobby floor.  “Rather, <em>who</em> do we have here?”</p>
<p>Cloud, meanwhile, can’t shake feeling like a burglar with his hand caught in the till.  “Just someone here to fix the water filter,” he says, uselessly inserting himself between the two.</p>
<p>Andrea’s brow rises.  “Just, you say?”</p>
<p>He sidesteps Cloud, circling around to the side.  His appraising eye fixes on the woman behind him, and he hums as his gaze sweeps over her from head to toe.  His brow inches higher.  “And what have I told you about honesty?  Seems like you’re trying to hide something from me.”  He curls his nose.  “Though a bit of polish may be in order.”</p>
<p>“Me?” she says.</p>
<p>“Yes, girl.  What is your name?”</p>
<p>“Um-,” she starts, glancing back and forth between him and Cloud.</p>
<p>Andrea tilts his head, curious.  “‘Um’?  How unusual.”</p>
<p>She shakes her head, flustered.  “It’s Tifa.  Tifa Lockhart.”</p>
<p>Just the sound of her full name, and the undeniable confirmation of her identity, makes Cloud want the floor to swallow him up-- the darker the hole the better.  This is not remotely how he imagined how they might meet again.  Though when he thinks about it, he’s not sure what other scenario he might have preferred.</p>
<p>“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Tifa Lockhart.”  Andrea extends his upturned hand toward hers, the latter anchored by her sides.  “May I?”</p>
<p>Her eyes flicker to Cloud, and with a hesitant start, she places her hand in Andrea’s.  He gathers it up, bringing her knuckles to his lips.  His eyes flicker to look down at them, saying, “My goodness.  What fierce, yet elegant strength.  I can only wonder what my other colleagues would say.”</p>
<p>Far more gently than Cloud would have, she extracts her hand from him, but she does take another step backward.  “Excuse me?  Just who are you, exactly?”</p>
<p>Andrea reels, for she had uttered perhaps the one thing that rises to the level of scandalous in their world.  How could she not recognize the one-and-only Andrea Rhodea?  </p>
<p>Cloud loathes to consider the question lurking on the other side of that coin-- which, naturally, becomes the <em>only</em> thing he can manage to think about.  When <em>had</em> he allowed the entire scope of his existence to shrink down to the Honeybee Inn and Wall Market?  Their particular pocket of vice in Sector 6 is merely one large pond out of many throughout Midgar, after all, and it’s not like he goes out of his way to keep track of all the big fish in each one.</p>
<p>If Andrea had taken any offense to her question, however, it’s short-lived.  The impish quirk to his lips returns, and with a hand crossed over his heart, he bows and says, “Forgive me.  I was so captivated I forgot my manners.  Andrea Rhodea, and this-“  He gestures about.  “Is my home. I see you have already met Cloud, my other gem in the rough.”</p>
<p>When he says her name, she whips to him, eyes wide.  Full cards on the table now.</p>
<p>The mischievous glint in Andrea’s eye brightens.  “So, it’s his name that shocks you, hmm?”</p>
<p>Tifa whips her attention back to him, bowing her head.  “Oh, no, excuse me.  I’m honored to meet you in person, Mr. Rhodea.  I have heard about you.  You have a lovely establishment.”</p>
<p>“Lovely, she says? Oh dear, now I am even more intrigued.”</p>
<p>She says, “Yes, well, Cloud was being truthful when he said I was just here to fix your filter.  I’m terribly sorry for your inconvenience, but it shouldn’t trouble you anymore.”</p>
<p>Andrea scoffs, dramatically clutching at his heart.  “Oh, but I am still troubled, Miss Lockhart.”</p>
<p>“Huh?”</p>
<p>“You strike me as someone who likes to train, and to be in their very best condition in both mind and body, ” he observes, taking another step toward her.  “And yet I fear you keep that luster hidden from the world with every moment you waste wearing that dreadful thing.”</p>
<p>Tifa glances down at her work uniform.  “How…?”</p>
<p>“Am I mistaken?”</p>
<p>“Well, no, actually.  I mean, I do like to train.”</p>
<p>“I thought so.  More importantly, you do seem to hold something quite valuable.”</p>
<p>“And what is that?”</p>
<p>Andrea gestures to Cloud.  “The notice of a certain royal honeybee.”  </p>
<p>Cloud can’t look her in the eye, his cheeks aflame. The word <em>luster</em> sticks out like a sore, stubborn splinter lodged in Cloud’s brain.  Ever since Andrea caught them at the top of the steps, Cloud couldn’t shake the sensation like being trapped in a valley, feeling the first trembles in the earth in warning of an approaching avalanche.</p>
<p>“Cloud…?” her voice alight with...<em>something</em>.  Morbid curiosity, perhaps.  That would make the most sense.</p>
<p>Andrea says, “I imagine few alive have ever managed that feat.  Therefore, miss, would you allow me to persuade you to listen to a proposition?  No, a plea.”</p>
<p>From the moment it had ignited, Cloud recognized the spark flickering in his boss’ eye.  A spark not unlike the one that ended his days as a bouncer, not long after his eighteenth birthday.  He makes the mistake of glancing over to Tifa, where his mind unhelpfully paints over her jumper-clad image with that of a titillating honeybee.  With full, intimate knowledge of the obscene behavior and lewd remarks they endure night after night, a chill sweeps through his body, his gut already having already turned sour, but now it twists in that sharp, bitter wind.</p>
<p>
  <em>He couldn’t be...</em>
</p>
<p>“Would you honor me with a dance this evening, my lady?”  Andrea asks, offering his hand to Tifa.</p>
<p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p>
<p>Andrea turns his attention sharply.  “What did you say?”  </p>
<p><em>Shit</em>, Cloud thinks, realizing he had uttered his no out loud, breaking the atmosphere like a thunderclap.  </p>
<p>He can’t blame his inner idiot this time.  His blood has already gone from frozen to boiling with indignity.  No backing down.  In for the pound, now.  He states again, “No, she won’t.”  </p>
<p>Andrea smirks, wicked.  “But neither of you have heard what I have in mind.”</p>
<p>“Don’t need to.”</p>
<p>Cloud knows he’s pushing it when the smirk on Andrea’s face disappears, sharpening into deadly irritation.  “That’s enough.  Your disagreement is noted, but why not let the lady hear it and make her own decision?”</p>
<p>Before Cloud can decide between another smartass remark or an apology, Tifa interrupts, saying, “I’m sorry, but I do have to decline.  While I appreciate your invitation, Mr. Rhodea, as I was saying to Cloud, I really can’t stay.”</p>
<p>Andrea touches his knuckles to his chin.  “Promised Land Springs, correct?” he asks, spitting out the company’s name like bitter wine.  </p>
<p>Hesitant, she answers, “Yes?”</p>
<p>“What if I could triple whatever pittance they toss your way?”</p>
<p>Shock alights her.  “W-what?”</p>
<p>“Would that be sweet enough for you to reconsider?  If you are as breathtaking on stage as I hope you are, I’ll hire you on the spot.”</p>
<p>Rigidly fixed to her spot, she blinks, uncertain.  “I don’t...I don’t want to be a honeybee.”</p>
<p>Andrea’s expression twists as if she said something painfully absurd.  “Who said anything about you being a mere honeybee?  Oh no, darling. I would crown you a <em>queen.</em>” </p>
<p>Cloud reels, paralyzed.   A queen?  That would mean...As in a <em>royal</em> bee, like himself?   </p>
<p><em>What the fuck?</em> </p>
<p><em>She’s his backup plan</em>, he realizes, faint with disbelief.  The avalanche buries him, turns him upside down, and he doesn’t know where else to look except the floor, utterly shocked by the callous disregard and claustrophobic in his own skin.  </p>
<p>They had only spoken yesterday, hadn't they?  Yet here Andrea was, already sizing up his replacement?  <em>Of course he was, you idiot.</em>  Andrea didn't become one of most successful businessmen in Wall Market, in all of Midgar, without having backup plans.  Of course he would seize on an auspicious opportunity to mitigate his risk.</p>
<p>But right in front of him?  Is he that eager to shove off Cloud from his throne after so many of his years?  Did Andrea really have that little faith in him?  </p>
<p>Even if it might be Tifa doing the replacing, a throb of betrayal wracks him, and disbelief short circuits his ability to even <em>think</em> right now, let alone speak.  </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Andrea gestures to him with a wave of his hand, saying,  “You would be on the same level as Cloud here.”  Then, gesturing further inside their gilded apiary, “Come, I loathe to discuss terms so far away from the stage.  Bear in mind that I rarely make the same offer twice.”</p>
<p>Having also apparently been struck speechless, Tifa glances between the Inn interior and the exit, and after a beat, her gaze returns to Andrea.  An odd look crosses over her-- as if she were the one sizing him up.  She then shakes her head, and extracts herself from under Andrea’s hand. “I’m sorry, but while I am flattered by the offer, I’ve got customers who rely on these filters, like you do.  I can’t just forget about them.”</p>
<p>Andrea hums, and in a solemn tone he tells her, “Disappointing, although I admire your sense of loyalty.  Tonight, then?”</p>
<p>“What about tonight?” Tifa says.</p>
<p>“After you are through with your day’s appointments.  Would that be more agreeable to you?”</p>
<p>Her mouth falls open, astonished.  “Why are you being so persistent?”</p>
<p>“Miss, anything worth having requires a good measure of it.  But if you do decide not to show, then I will be happy to consider our business concluded.  Aside from your current services, that is,” he says.</p>
<p>The smug joy Cloud wants to feel at her rejection makes for a poor balm on his wounded spirit, and is taken off guard by a throb of disappointment, too.  The hollow vacuum separating their world from hers seems to expand all the more.   </p>
<p>Yet Andrea’s powers of persuasion are borderline supernatural and difficult to resist, and she appears to be no exception.  Her internal debate rages behind her eyes as she turns her gaze from the red curtain, then inward towards their inner sanctum of excess and hedonism.  Cloud keeps his mouth sealed, awaiting her decision with fateful resignation, wondering which way she might fall.   </p>
<p>But when her gaze returns to Cloud, it’s as if the blade chooses to fall.  She extends her hand to Andrea.  “Alright.  No promises, but I’ll dance with you.  Tonight.”</p>
<p>Her acceptance is so abrupt that it stuns even Andrea into a momentary silence.  But soon his lip splits into a wide grin once more, shaking her hand.  “Fantastic!  Cloud, you will show her to make up when she arrives.  Have our honeybees work their magic.”</p>
<p>Cloud stammers out, “R-right...”</p>
<p>“What was that?”</p>
<p>Louder, “Yes, sir.”</p>
<p>Andrea smirks, like a cat that caught the canary.  “Good.  I look forward to welcoming you into our family, Miss Lockhart.  Now, what was I doing before being so wonderfully sidetracked?  Oh, yes...”  He then takes his leave, practically levitating across the floor as he retreats from the lobby, slipping past the red curtain.</p>
<p>“Makeup?” she asks.</p>
<p>Left alone again with her, the heady desire to gather her up in his arms is long gone.   Instead, those feelings disintegrate like ash. He can hardly comprehend anything right now.  He bolts towards the interior door.  </p>
<p>“Wait, Cloud?”</p>
<p>His voice refuses to work.   He hears the scrape of her boots as she scrambles to follow behind him.  </p>
<p>She calls out to him again.  “Cloud Strife, right?”</p>
<p>“Thought you had somewhere to be?” he spits like venom over his shoulder.</p>
<p>“What’s the matter with you?”</p>
<p>He grunts, all but stomping like an ogre towards the nearest dressing room.  </p>
<p>Hotly, she says, “Is this how you’re going to treat your childhood friend?”</p>
<p>Cloud bristles at that.  He throws open the dressing room door and, after making sure it is unoccupied, guides her inside and slams and locks the door behind them.  Nostrils flaring, he says to her, “What are you thinking?   How are you even in Midgar?”</p>
<p>“So...it really is <em>you</em>, right?”</p>
<p>“You didn’t answer my question.”</p>
<p>She meets his annoyance with a flash of her own, saying, “I could use the money.  Is that a crime?  Which, to answer your other question, it’s because I live here now.”</p>
<p>Her answer blunts him, and for the first time, he thinks he senses the mettle about her that Andrea had detected so swiftly.  He says, “Since when?”</p>
<p>“Since…” Her gaze falls to the floor, the fire going out.  Her gaze becomes distant.   “Look, Cloud, if I had known you were here this whole time...”</p>
<p>She trails off and says nothing else.  He sighs.  In truth, he was being a bit of - and he grinds his teeth - a <em>cat butt.</em>  To the wrong person, no less.  He taps his foot, knowing who he really needs to have a word with.</p>
<p>He says,  “Forget it.   Look, if you’re really going to do this, then the doors open to customers in a few hours.  The stage show starts an hour after that.”</p>
<p>“Wait, stage show?  Like, in front of other people?”</p>
<p>Cloud looks at her as if she sprouted a second head.  “What else did you think?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.  I guess I didn’t really think much at all.”</p>
<p>“And you’re sure you still want to do this?  A career change is kind of a big decision to be making in a single day. ”</p>
<p>“Maybe.  But in for the pound now, I guess,” she says with a shrug.</p>
<p>He grins, tight and mirthless, darkly amused by the echo of his thoughts earlier-- and really, the phrase kind of sums up his whole career if he were honest.  </p>
<p>She adds, “But I guess I also figured with you here, things might be okay.  That this was a sign...”</p>
<p>“Sign of what?”</p>
<p>She shrugs.  “I don’t know.  Like fate, I guess?”</p>
<p>It’s no use.  He gives up.  All the fight in him, all the irritation, just <em>wooshes</em> out of him when he hears that.  He says, “Fate or not, if Andrea’s right about you, then I’m sure you’ll do fine.  I’ll ask our dancers to work with you, too.  But otherwise, just move however feels natural.”</p>
<p>“That Andrea seems...really intense.”</p>
<p>Cloud folds his arms, shrugging.  “He’s tough, but very good to who he considers family, even if it’s something of a hobby for him to try and talk circles around people.”</p>
<p>“How long have you been working for him?”</p>
<p>Anticipating the probing question, but loath to broach the subject, Cloud says, “Few years.”  Though not for much longer.  He decides not to postpone that little detail.  Instead, he gestures toward the door, moving to open it for her.  </p>
<p>As he walks her back to the exit, he can’t help but ask, “You’ve been in Midgar for how long?”</p>
<p>“Few years,” she echoes.</p>
<p>Something about that hurts. “That long, and we never crossed paths once.”</p>
<p>She frowns.  “Guess not.”</p>
<p>“Something the matter?”</p>
<p>She shakes her head.  “No.  But maybe we can catch up sometime, huh?”  </p>
<p>“Yeah...maybe.”</p>
<p>The red curtain nears, and she sighs, checking her wristwatch.  “Damn it.”</p>
<p>“Where to next?”</p>
<p>“Some restaurant. The chef there says his food’s been tasting funny, and he claims it’s the water.  Guess we’ll have to see.”</p>
<p>He makes a face.  “If I know which place you’re talking about, then I doubt it’s the water.  But good luck with that.”</p>
<p>“Thanks, Cloud.  You know...it really is good to see you.  Even if it is the last place I would have expected.  Later!”</p>
<p>Cloud turns away, with a head feeling like it’s full of warm static.  “Yeah.  You, too.” he says as she slips back out into the daylight.  The red curtain flutters closed behind her.</p><hr/>
<p>Cloud perches along the darkened corner by the bar, wallowing in the pleasant ache in his chest.  There’s something painfully familiar about it, and in relearning how to be content with Tifa being well out of his reach.  So much about her has changed, and he would be an even worse idiot to deny that a lot has changed for him, too.  But since the moment they had fully recognized each other, it gives him a strange comfort to know that some things hadn’t changed much at all.</p>
<p>“Wow.  Who knew the grease monkey had moves, huh?”</p>
<p>Sadie’s elbow meets his rib as she says it, making him sway from where he had been leaning against the bar top, captivated by the show.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he answers, dumbly, unable to divide his attention well enough to be annoyed.  </p>
<p>Earlier, when Tifa had made good on her word and returned to the Inn that evening, she had insisted on donning a honeyboy outfit.  She had said she loved the way it looked.  Her enchanting eyes swept over him as she said it, forcing him to make an escape from the dressing room in a hurry, blurting that he would be right outside if she wanted any help.  Just that single remark had lit a fuse in his head which might have very well exploded had he not left her to her privacy. </p>
<p>And now, his head swims again, and his mouth going dry when the stage lights fell, and she hit the floor in her dazzling tuxedo, long coattails fluttering behind her. Although not in a royal tux dripping with so much gold - there only exists one of those, his - the lights still make it flash and twinkle against her celestial figure, her black vest and trousers hugging her trim waist and thighs like the void wrapped around moonlight.  </p>
<p>Having traded her lumpy muffin for a top hat, and freed of that ghastly work jumper, Cloud begrudgingly admits Andrea was right.  Again.  With the passing years, Tifa’s natural beauty bloomed into a vision of shapely curves, merged with the well-honed body of a martial artist, with enough grace and power in her aura to fill the entire auditorium to its edges.</p>
<p>More importantly, her instincts match up perfectly to the task at hand.  Her coordination and rhythm transferred easily to the stage, like trading one well-fitting shoe for another.  She had only practiced with their dancers for half an hour, but she knows when to start and stop, controlling the flow of her limbs down to the tips of her fingers and toes.  The moment the music segues and the lights cascade, she continues to match Andrea step for step, captivating the crowd who return their spellbinding performance with praise and catcalls.</p>
<p><em>Shit,</em> he thinks in passive surrender.  Maybe she would be better at his job after all.  But then what would he do?</p>
<p>“Damn, Cloud.  I ain’t never seen you have it this bad.  Or ever, really.”</p>
<p>“Have what?” he asks, half listening.</p>
<p>“Seriously?  Are you messing with me?”</p>
<p>Sadie’s voice fades into the background again as his gaze drifts back to Tifa, but he does register her scoff near his ear.  “Forget it, loverboy.  Try to remember that you’re still on the clock, too.”</p>
<p>“Right,” he mutters, long after the air beside him had gone cold.</p>
<p>When the music stops, wild applause thunders through the auditorium.  As Tifa and Andrea take their final bows, Cloud leaps from his seat and dashes from the bar, weaving between booths.  The hollers and wolf whistles of their pleased patrons pierce the air as far as backstage, where he slips among the shadows between the various cables and props.  He leans against a wooden set piece, and waits.</p>
<p>“Marvelous,” Andrea tells Tifa as they exit the stage, breathless and triumphant.  He bows in deference.  “I knew you would be a natural, darling.”</p>
<p>Tifa pants, catching her breath, her face glowing.  “It’s like my whole body is <em>singing</em>,” she admits.</p>
<p>He smiles.  “This can be your new life, Tifa.  Your new family.  Though it is your choice, I sincerely believe that fate played its hand tonight.  I feel that you know it, too.  So please, join us.”  With a preternatural sense for his presence, he glances back over his shoulder to Cloud.  </p>
<p>Tifa follows Andrea’s gaze, her elated smile broadening when her eyes settle on Cloud.  </p>
<p>“Is it alright, Cloud?” she asks.</p>
<p>He steps forward, out from a shadow.  “Up to you,” he answers with a shrug.   </p>
<p>Her expression falters at his reply.  Nonetheless, she nods her head and says to Andrea, “I accept.”</p>
<p>“Fantastic!” Andrea claps his hands together, positively brimming with delight.  Placing a hand across his chest, he bows his head to her.  “And although you are a vision as you are, we shall soon need to have you measured you for your suit.”</p>
<p>“Thank you.  Speaking of, however, could I borrow a phone?  I’d like to reach out to the company and let them know I won’t be available for evenings.”</p>
<p>It takes a second for the implications behind her remark to register, chilling the enthusiasm in the air.</p>
<p>Andrea frowns, cocking a brow.  “You still intend to work for them?”</p>
<p>“Um,” she starts.  “If I can arrange it on a part-time basis, I’d like to.  But you, and the Inn, are now my top priority.  Is that going to be a problem?” </p>
<p><em>Yes</em>, Cloud thinks, practically shouting it in his mind at her, and something in him pops like a blister.  He says, “You want to stay with a company who only treats you as a number?  Who would think nothing of firing you for not being able to jump through whatever insane hoops they put in front of you?”</p>
<p>Somehow, he manages not to flinch at his own remark.  A deep, heavy scowl crosses his face as his gaze flickers over to Andrea.  </p>
<p>Tifa says, “I think I would know best about what they’re like, Cloud.  They are mostly greedy, corner-cutting assholes, but with our staff stretched as it is, I don’t want to leave customers holding the bag if I can help it.  Trust me, if I felt I could quit with a clear conscience, I would.”</p>
<p>At that, a smirk slowly stretches across Andrea’s face.  “Miss Lockhart, you are a rare gem indeed.  Very well.  We can discuss the specifics of your new employment tomorrow.  In the meantime, Cloud, if you would?  After the lady gets her outside affairs in order, please see the her home.”</p>
<p>“Sir?” Cloud starts, surprised by the request.  </p>
<p>Tifa appears just as confused.  “That’s really not necessary.  I walk myself home all the time,” she says.</p>
<p>“Although I don’t doubt your capability, please humor my abundance of caution.  And Cloud, once you have done your duty, you may take the rest of the evening off,” Andrea says.  Something about the way he looks at Cloud sends a bolt straight through his heart.   Only then does it crash in on him that Andrea was setting him up.</p>
<p>“But-” Tifa starts, but the speed in which Andrea turns on his heel with a speed that leaves them no opportunity to argue.  </p>
<p>“That’s all.  Enjoy yourselves,” he says, chuckling as he exits back out into the boisterous auditorium.</p>
<p>Left alone, side by side, Cloud and Tifa share a glance with one another.</p>
<p>Cloud breaks first with a shrug, saying.  “Welcome to your new life.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Tifa says, sighing, but without any move to leave.  “You really don’t have to see me home.  We can just say you did.”</p>
<p>He frowns, his gut sinking at her suggestion.  “Where do you live, anyway?”</p>
<p>“Sector 7.”</p>
<p>He reels.  “That far?”</p>
<p>“Right?  That’s why we can just pretend like you did.   I know how absurd actually walking me home would be for you-”</p>
<p>“No way.”</p>
<p>She blinks at him as he turns to face her.  </p>
<p>“I’m definitely coming with you in that case,” he says, heedless to the way his heart thrashes against his ribcage at the thought.  Of having a whole entire evening to spend with her. </p>
<p>“You really don’t have to,” she says.</p>
<p>“Got the rest of the night off, remember?  Can’t think of much else to do with myself.”</p>
<p>There’s a long pause, long enough that he thinks she might reject him again.</p>
<p>But instead, she smiles.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you all for your AMAZING feedback thus far on this AU!  You know, it just hit me that AU is the chemical symbol for gold, so would that make this almost like...an AU AU? (okay, ignore me)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am really, really grateful for all the positive feedback so far on this fic!  This AU is all pretty low stakes after having subtracted Sephiroth and Corneo from this world, so I'm glad this is still fun to read after lightening up the tone of everything.  </p><p>There's still some more angst left to mix in, though, but the good news is that I -do- fully intend to earn my self-designated M rating after this chapter...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Trading their tuxes for street clothes, swapping out glitzy illusion for drab reality, the comfort of the latter allows Cloud to relax only a little as he and Tifa exit the Inn and wade in amongst the teeming nighttime crowds.  </p><p>Underneath her baggy technician uniform, Tifa had worn a white tank and a black pleated skirt, the latter held in place by suspenders over her shoulders, the straps converging into a Y-shape down her back.  Charcoal black leggings wrapped like a second skin down from her thighs to a pair of red boots.  She carries her grey uniform draped over her forearm as they walk past the various outdoor bars and shops, boisterous with loud music and drunken revelry.  </p><p>She’s even more beautiful in casual clothes, he thinks.  He also thinks that<em> they’re friends, you hopeless bastard</em>, latching onto the word like a liferaft.  <em>Friends</em>, even though his brain feels stuck in a perpetual centrifuge, having only just begun to process that Tifa lives in Midgar, and that let alone that in the span of a few hours they had become coworkers.  Temporarily, anyway.  Regardless of the doom counter over his spinning head, he can’t distinguish whether it was thrill or dread pounding away in his chest just from being in the proximity of her both gentle and intimidating presence.</p><p>Over the din, and in an effort to distract himself from thinking too much about his nerves, he says, “Walked home in my tux once.  Wouldn’t recommend it, and I only live a few streets over.”</p><p>She replies,  “So you live nearby?”</p><p>“Mmhmm.”  Hands in his pockets, he nods over to his left. “Only a few blocks that way.”</p><p>“Wow.  That’s got to be expensive.”</p><p>He shrugs.  “Andi’s not kidding when he says he can triple what you make now.”</p><p>She’s quiet for a moment.  He glances over, and there’s a thoughtful crimp to her brow. “You’ve been doing well for yourself here then, huh?” she asks.</p><p><em>Not for much longer.</em>  “Well enough that I say we ought to spring for a ride from Chocobo Sam’s.  Andrea said to see you home, he didn’t actually specify <em>how</em>…”</p><p>“What?  Really?” she says, astonished, expression alight. She reacts as if he suggested they take a private helicopter, sending his ego soaring as high as the plate, even if it does little to ease his nerves.  Her astonishment vanishes quickly, though, saying, “But Cloud, you know the gate’s not that far away.”</p><p>Her concern, too, is touching.  He says, “Yeah, really, and it’s no real hassle.  Might even get a discount.  The handlers over there know I work for Andrea.” </p><p>“Pays to have connections, huh.”</p><p>“Exactly.  And so we ought to take the opportunity to introduce you as well, Miss Queen Bee.”</p><p>When she giggles, it’s like a shot of antidote to the poison of his self-consciousness.  Despite himself, he might even describe the silence between them for the rest of their walk as comfortable.  </p><p>The chocobo stall insignia soon comes into view.  Sam himself is not in at the moment - probably indulging in a wager at the colosseum - but that doesn’t prevent one of his stablehands from recognizing Cloud on the spot.  But when he introduces Tifa, the <em>discounted</em> carriage ride becomes <em>on the house</em>.  In honor of her new gig, supposedly.</p><p>“Seems a bit generous.  I can’t help but wonder if we’ll owe them a favor someday,” Tifa says after they climb inside the carriage and settle into its plush seats.</p><p>Cloud can’t deny it.  “A good instinct to have.  That’s the Wall Market way.”</p><p>The driver shouts <em>heeyah!</em>, the chocobo warbles, and the carriage lurches into motion.  It trundles on its way through the trench of junk connecting his neighborhood and hers.  Pedestrians pass by outside the window: some are quiet loners, some are groups of friends laughing as they’re drawn in towards the bright lights, and some are couples, elbows and fingers entwined.</p><p>“I’ve actually never taken a carriage before,” Tifa admits, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.</p><p>“Really?” Cloud asks, stupidly pleased to hear that.</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, though, he catches the crimp in her brow, and the makings of a frown on her lip. A look of conflict.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Cloud asks, shifting to avoid the scalding touch of her knee against his in the rather tight quarters of the carriage. </p><p>“I guess I thought you’d be more...”</p><p>She worries her bottom lip between her teeth. </p><p>“More what?” he prods.</p><p>“Excited?”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>She fidgets.  “I mean, I get why you wouldn’t be.  This was a huge invasion of your territory.  Maybe my decision was way too fast.  Maybe I should go back to Andrea, apologize, and decline-”</p><p>“No!”</p><p>Once again, the air stills as if he had just spat out a thunderbolt.  Even when her brow and shoulders are tense with conflict, she is so beautiful.  His chest swells, painfully, when he starts to say, “Tifa…” he starts, his fingers itching to reach for hers curled in her lap.  “It’s fine.  I mean, you don’t have to commit to anything, but maybe you should give yourself at least a night to think it over.”</p><p>“I don’t want to stay if it makes you uncomfortable.”</p><p>He shakes his head, not too vigorously he hopes.  “I’m not <em>uncomfortable</em>, but I think I would be if you refused this opportunity because of me.  Refuse because it’s a tough business, or that you’ll be bone-tired most nights, or the pay isn’t worth all the commute, or anything else.”</p><p>“For that much money, I think my commute would be the least significant hurdle.”</p><p>“Glad to hear it.  Besides…”</p><p>“Besides, what?”</p><p>He thinks about mentioning that they ought to make the most of it, as his days there were probably numbered.  Instead he takes a breath, then says, “I’ll be the one showing you the ropes.  That’s gotta count for something, right?”</p><p>Her lip twitches. “Maybe,” she teases.  “But you’re already going so much out of your way, even if it is the boss' orders.”</p><p>“Not at all.  Besides, what kind of childhood friend would I be otherwise?”</p><p>Maybe he can wait to deliver on the full truth, because when she smiles again, full of something he can’t name, all he wants is to have it last.</p><hr/><p>The carriage drops them off at the stop a little ways inside the gates of Sector 7, and at first he thinks they made a wrong turn.  In truth, he had almost forgotten how the undercity normally appears at night outside of the glitz and glam of his neighborhood.  It was an adjustment to get used to nighttime actually being <em>dark</em> as they stride past the creepy old train yard as they stride past the main station.</p><p>The upper plate’s support pillar looms overhead as Tifa leads him into the heart of her neighborhood, and much further inside the sector gates than he had anticipated.  They come up on a dilapidated eyesore smack in the middle of town, and out of the corner of his eye, he catches Tifa looking at the pile of corrugated sheet metal and rotten wood with a rather forlorn bend to her lip.  Stupidly, it makes his hand itch to reach for hers again.</p><p>He barely resists his compulsion until her faraway voice snaps him out of it.  </p><p>“Someday…” she starts.</p><p>“Someday?” he prods.</p><p>She shakes her head.  “It’s stupid.”</p><p>“Tell me?”</p><p>They stride past the crumbled heap, silent enough that he decides to drop it.  </p><p>She then says, “That parcel back there would be perfect.”</p><p>“Perfect for what?”</p><p>“My own place.  A bar, I think.”</p><p>“That heap of junk?” He glances back over his shoulder. “That’s going to take a lot of work.”</p><p>“I know.  But I’ve been thinking about what Andrea said.  About how nothing worth having doesn’t also take a measure of persistence.”</p><p>He can’t muster a reply, and it’s not much further anyway until their evening stroll comes to a halt in front of a quaint, two-storey apartment building.  He stops beside her as she looks up to its second floor.</p><p>“Well, here we are.  My grand palace, Stargazer Heights,” she tells him.  “Thank you, Cloud.  For the carriage, and for coming all this way.”</p><p>“Don’t mention it.”</p><p>He stays firmly rooted in place when she moves for the building’s only flight of stairs leading up to the second floor walkway.  She halts again when she notices his absence, and turns to him.  </p><p>“Aren’t you coming up?”</p><p>“Um, I mean...you’re home, right?” he replies, thinking he might choke on the way his heart leaps to the back of his throat.</p><p>She says, “Please?”</p><p>And that’s all it takes.</p><p>She leads him up the flight of steps, where they stop immediately before a door labeled 201.  He finds it odd when she doesn’t turn the door handle, and instead simply rests her palm over it.  The only motion, the only sound is her hair whispering in the smoggy breeze.  A moment of awkward silence passes, shattered when they both say at the same time, “So…”</p><p>Cloud turns away first, and hears Tifa chuckle under her breath.  </p><p>She turns back around to him and says, “Hey, would you like to come in for a second?”</p><p>Cloud’s surprise must be evident in the way he snaps to her, because she immediately backtracks.  Hugging her arms around herself, she rambles,  “I mean, I don’t mean...I just thought we could talk for a minute.  I haven’t seen you in ages, and I just wanted to-”</p><p>“Sure,” he says.</p><p>She nods sharply, relief washing away the sting in her expression, but still hesitates for a second before spinning back around.  The door pops open and she leads him inside her matchbox apartment, barely enough for one person, let alone two.  Even so, it’s cozy and well-kept, with band posters and a punching bag giving it a touch of her character.</p><p>He spots a pair of cowboy boots on the floor by the foot of her bed, too. He wonders just how long she’s had those around.</p><p>There’s a hanger on a hook just inside of the door, on which she hangs up her uniform.  “I would offer you something to drink, but…” she starts.</p><p>“Nah, it’s okay.  What did you want to talk about?”</p><p>Replacing the hanger on the hook, she next gestures to her lone chair that accompanies a small desk beside her bed. “Why don’t you have a seat?”</p><p>He looks down to it, puzzled.  But when he looks back up, her face has gone pale.</p><p>“Tifa?” he asks, feeling as though he too had been run through with an icicle himself.  </p><p>“You haven’t heard, have you?” she says, barely above a whisper.</p><p>At her ominous remark, the icy chill in his veins turns glacial.  “What?”</p><p>Tifa looks down at her hands.  </p><p>He presses, “Heard what?”</p><p>Trembling, she nods to the empty chair again. “You should sit down.” </p><p>Cloud does no such thing, standing stock still with his gaze fixed on her.  “Heard what, Tifa?” he asks again after a hard swallow.</p><p>“Sit down, Cloud.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Cloud-”</p><p>“What are you not telling me?”</p><p>She wraps her arms around her midsection, collapsing even further in on herself.  </p><p>He steps closer. “Tifa...”</p><p>“It’s about the village, Cloud.”</p><p>He lurches. “What about it?”</p><p>“Nibelheim...Nibelheim’s gone.”</p><p>His breath catches in his throat, as if the revelation were a gunshot.  Nothing about her expression belies anything false about her words, but it...it had to be bullshit.  Some kind of bad prank she’s pulling.  He says,  “What do you mean, <em>gone?</em>”</p><p>Because he won’t, she crosses over and claims the chair instead.  Seated and staring down at her hands folded in her lap, she says, “A few years ago, there was a problem with the reactor.  Monsters, driven mad by it, they...they came swarming down from the mountain.  Everyone tried to flee, but fires broke out.”</p><p>Cloud sits with this, his vision glazed over as he tries to imagine it, and fails.  “Shit...”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“But there was some warning, right?  Everyone made it out?”</p><p>She sits, silent.</p><p>“Mom?” he whispers.</p><p>His heart stops until she nods-- a quick, sharp jerk of her chin.  “Mostly, I think.”</p><p>He lets out a breath, relieved, having shut his eyes to hold back the burning he feels. </p><p>She continues, “We called Shinra for help, but they never showed up.  At least, not in time to save anything,”  She clenches her fist.  “Anyway, I tried to fight them off and to get everyone to safety.  Most everyone managed to flee to Cosmo Canyon.”</p><p>“You? <em> You</em> fought them?”</p><p>She shrugs.  “All the boys had left.  And Dad…” Anguish taints her voice. “There was no one else who was capable.”</p><p>Her lip trembles, and she inhales sharply as she wipes her face with the back of her wrist.  “I lost Dad.”</p><p>Cloud’s gaze hits the floor, his gut pulling tight.  He and Mr. Lockhart never got along.  Ever.  Nonetheless, Cloud always respected the fierce love he had held for his daughter.  He knew, too, that Tifa loved him just as fiercely.  “I’m sorry,” he says, feeling it in his bones.  Here he had been all these years, having never been the wiser.  </p><p>He turns out his hand.  An offering to her.</p><p>Glancing up at him, her cheeks wet, she accepts.  Slipping her hand in his, she stands up and leans forward, wrapping her hands around his waist.  He snakes his arms around her shoulder, and lets her dry her eyes in his collar.</p><p>“Here I thought I had done all my crying.  I know it’s stupid,” she mumbles into his collar.</p><p>“That’s not true,” he says, the sting in his own eyes worsening with how she shivers in his arms with sorrow and shock.  Into her soft, luscious hair he mumbles, “I’m so sorry.  I should have never left.  You shouldn’t have had to handle it alone.”</p><p>Still murmuring into his shirt, she says, “I don’t really remember much, except the heat and the smoke.  The smells.  It was all such a blur.”</p><p>“I never knew,” Cloud says, his vision growing hazy, focused instead on her voice, her honeyed scent, and the warm press of their bodies.  “It was never mentioned on the news.”</p><p>Tifa is quiet for a moment.  “Shinra probably kept it that way.”</p><p>Cloud grimaces, a fury igniting deep in his core. He thought about Mom’s voice just that morning, ashamed at his childish annoyance with her.  Intrusively, he thinks he should have written to her more. He had always naively assumed home would always be there.  That he’d always have that last resort no matter what happened to him in Midgar.   </p><p>“But that doesn’t explain how you ended up in Midgar,” he says.</p><p>At that, she pulls away, and backs out of his embrace.  Flicking the corners of her eyes, she says, “I was hurt pretty bad, but Master Zangan found me.  Since the village was burnt to the ground, and there weren’t skilled enough healers at Cosmo Canyon, he brought me to Midgar for help instead.”</p><p>Hearing that, it pains him to think she nearly died during the whole time they had been apart, all the while he was thinking that she had moved on.  “Is that who trained you?”</p><p>“Yeah.  I still can’t believe Andrea could figure me out from just a glance.”</p><p>Despite coming off a grim subject, he smirks.   “Andi’s pretty scary like that.”</p><p>“How did you even end up working for him?”</p><p>Cloud turns his gaze, backing away further.  Her question knocks the smile clean off his face, and he can’t help but fume with embarrassment. </p><p>“You don’t have to tell me,” she offers.</p><p>He thinks about it.  Thinks about bidding her goodnight and making his escape like a coward.  But it feels worse to imagine it, somehow.  To imagine himself backing down, fleeing in front of her.  So even as his jaw pulls taut, his pride feeling as brittle as a rusty pipe, he says, “Didn’t exactly have an easy time, either, after I left.  Not nearly as hard as you, clearly, but things didn’t pan out.  And Midgar’s not exactly cheap.”  He scoffs, mean and sharp.  He regrets letting too much of his bitterness infect his tone when she frowns.  </p><p>“So what did happen?  Why aren’t you with Shinra?”</p><p>He grimaces, his entire body stringing taut. “Never made it in.  Didn’t even pass basic. The recruitment officer laughed in my face when he gave me my test scores.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Yeah.  Oh.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>Cloud shakes his head, starting a slow pace about the room, tapping the punching bag with his knuckles as he passes.  “I didn’t want to live on charity, so I took up a job at the Inn as a bouncer.  Thought I might eventually save enough money for the trip back.  But then Andrea, he, well...he took something of an interest in me and my future.  A lot like he’s doing for you now.  He thought my talents were being wasted,”  He smirks at her, wryly.  “Made me dance on stage with him as my interview, too,” he admits.</p><p>He doesn’t really know why he was telling her all of this.  Maybe he had already accepted that his life might just as well be over by the end of the week.</p><p>“Really?” she says.  He kind of hates how her eyes alight.  “I wish I could have been there to see it.”</p><p>Cloud huffs, shaking his head.  “Well, I don’t.  I never wanted you to see me like this.”</p><p>She frowns again.  “Why not?”</p><p>“Because your one friend from Nibelheim helps manage the undercity’s premiere adult parlor?  It’s not exactly something I’d bring up in a letter to Mom.”  He grimaces at his own thoughtless expression.  Tonight, he decides.  He would write to Mom tonight.</p><p>Tifa says, “Well, it’s me and you now, don’t you forget.  I think if I had a problem with any of it, we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.”</p><p>He huffs.  “Guess that is saying something.  You could be crazy, you know.”</p><p>“Just like you, so suck it up,” she says, grinning. </p><p>Combined with the playful way she looks at him, it loosens a valve in him, and his earlier tension bleeds out from him.  “I take it you’ve made your decision about the job, then?”</p><p>“I don’t think I’ll need to sleep on it, let’s put it that way.”</p><p>“Why did you agree, anyway?  You seemed pretty reluctant at first.”</p><p>In a curiously similar fashion, her smile vanishes with the question, and she takes a moment to gather her thoughts.  She tells him, “Like you, once I recovered, I knew I couldn’t live off of other people’s charity forever.  I had to look for work.  That’s when Promised Land Springs hired me.  They needed hands and were willing to train.  Andrea’s right that they don’t pay me much, but it’s been enough to afford this place and put money aside for my own business.”</p><p>“You mean the one down the road?”</p><p>“Yeah.  With triple the money, plus what I make working part time, I might be able to do it within a year or two, instead of five or six.”</p><p>“I see.  Well, I won’t mention it to Andi.”</p><p>Her eyes grow wide.  “Oh, damn it!”</p><p>He assures her, “Don’t worry.  You should follow your dreams.  Cross that bridge when it comes.”</p><p>She nods, heaving out a breath full of relief.  “Thanks, Cloud.  You know…” she starts, then shakes her head.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You’re a pretty nice guy.  I wish I had noticed it more when we were kids.”</p><p>Nice guy? he thinks, his heart fluttering again.  His thoughts turn impure, his skin magnetic.  Friends, he reminds himself.  Cheeks burning, his eyes flicker toward the door.  “I should probably head home.”</p><p>“Oh, alright.”  He can’t, he <em>won’t</em> let himself think he detects something like <em>disappointment</em> laced in her voice.  “You going to be okay getting back?”</p><p>“I’ll be fine,” he says, both a truth and a lie, in that instant sensing the weight of everything she just told him as if it were stalking him just outside the door.  The moment he leaves, he knows it would ambush him, merciless.  But as long as he stays here, in her presence, he feels untouchable.  He wants to bask in it for as much as she’ll allow. </p><p>But it was well past time he left her be.  He backs towards the door and reaches for the handle.</p><p>“Wait!”</p><p>Turning to her, he waits.</p><p>She says, “Cloud...be careful.  I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”</p><p>He assures her, “Of course.”</p><p>Slipping out into the night, the artificial speckles of the upper plate shine and glimmer like starlight.  He never noticed that before.  Or perhaps he did, but it had reminded him too much of home.</p><p>He makes it all the way to the train station before the weight pounces, and the first sob shudders through him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I honestly debated with myself a LOT about Tifa's dad, especially since I decided most of the villagers survived Nibelheim's destruction in this AU, including Cloud's mom.  But ultimately, I decided to keep it in that he died-- to add both more weight to the scene and include some congruity with the canon.</p><p>Cloud still needs to write to Mom, though, the silly goose</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>At long last...it gets STEAMIER than Palmer's lardy tea up in this chapter!  You're welcome for that mental image to start off with</p>
<p>I referenced/used an actual day of the week in this, which was a fully conscious choice but that hopefully doesn't break immersion too bad.  But if it helps, you can perhaps imagine it as whatever the equivalent would be in Gaia-land.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If there is one thing Cloud felt sure about the following day, after he had put away his groceries, is that his state of eternal boredom seemed like such a distant memory anymore.</p>
<p>And despite the nightmare of knowing his hometown had been wiped off the map, the next several days ended up skipping along like a dream.</p>
<p>Tifa had been measured for her royal honeybee tuxedo.  She managed to wrangle a bit more flourish to hers, too, and he most definitely did <em>not</em> feel the least bit envious that the cut of the golden coattails were longer, broader, and curled outward.  Not one shred.  It would take at least two weeks for their tailor to fulfill the special order, anyway, forcing her to suffer through with her borrowed plain tuxedo in the meantime.  </p>
<p>But when Tifa placed the black top hat on her head, Cloud couldn’t help but frown.  He shook his head, wanting to deny it, but knowing in his gut what had to be done.</p>
<p>“Here,” he had said, plucking off the golden top hat from his head.  He glanced at it, mentally bidding it farewell as a faithful companion, before thrusting it forward for her to take.</p>
<p>“But this belongs to you,” Tifa said.</p>
<p>“I think I can live without it,” he says, shrugging.</p>
<p>Introductions around their apiary followed.  A handful honeyboys and girls were naturally a bit skeptical of the new authority in their midst, despite their trust in Andrea’s judgment.   Some honeybees, on the other hand, had been there to witness Tifa’s performance the night before, and were more easily converted.  Sadie belonged to the latter group and, bolstered by her enthusiastic acceptance, helped warm over the skeptics.  Tifa's energetic attitude sealed the deal, as well as the fact she had martial arts training-- and could throw out her fair share of drunk idiots by herself if necessary.</p>
<p>Which, in one evening, happened to occur.  The barflies were buzzing, and even with a golden hat crowning her head, a couple of such idiots had asked for “the real manager” after she had stepped in over complaints about the attitude of a cocktail waitress they had been borderline harassing all evening.</p>
<p>“But maybe we’d be more satisfied if you served us our drinks and kept us company instead, baby,” one of them said, shamelessly ogling her from head to toe.  To his douchebag friend, “She’s pretty hot, right?” </p>
<p>It went against every bone in Cloud’s body, but acting as her shadow, he only kept a close observation of the interaction, allowing Tifa the chance to figure out her own way to deal with the problem.</p>
<p>Turned out, had he interfered, he would have deprived himself of the show that followed. </p>
<p>With fingers laced behind her back and a saccharine smile plastered across her lips, Tifa leaned in, and sweetly requested that they go ahead and settle their tab.  When said jerk blew her off and grabbed a heaping handful of her ass, no language could describe the murderous fantasies <em>that</em> had conjured in Cloud’s brain.  Blood spatter might look good on his blouse-- who was to say?</p>
<p>His rage, however, transformed into wondrous awe when her hand snapped with the ferocity of a lightning bolt to the offending customer’s wrist.  She twisted him off with blistering force, and the embarrassing yelp she wrung out had been the most supremely satisfying sound.</p>
<p>Again, sweetly, she asked them to settle their bill.  </p>
<p>She let him go, and the jerk cursed and slapped his gil down on the table.  </p>
<p>Then, he makes his last mistake.  </p>
<p>Standing up, he rose to tower over her. “Happy now, bitch?” </p>
<p>She smiled.  “Not quite.”</p>
<p>And then he was wrenched forward and, pinning his arm behind his back, she proceeded to frogmarch him straight out the door.  He went easily, despite much caterwauling, and she only had to do it once.  As drunk as he was, his associate didn’t need nearly as much convincing after witnessing her demonstration.  In fact, it seemed like every customer decided to behave themselves for the rest of the night, much to the awe and amusement of their fellow honeybees.</p>
<p>Which was all to say that she seemed to be fitting right in.  </p>
<p>He told her as much when she rejoined him, reclining at the bar.  “In fact, I would say you could be your own boss someday,” he said with a wry smirk.  “It would be a shame if you were to take your skills elsewhere.”</p>
<p>“What, you’re not trying to run me out already, are you?” she answered, taking his remark in good humor. “Can’t handle the competition?”</p>
<p>“As if it ever crossed my mind that I could compete.”</p>
<p>She laughed, rolling her eyes.  When they returned back to him, they softened, her expression sweet as syrup.  </p>
<p>“Hey, Cloud?” </p>
<p>“What’s up?” </p>
<p>“Let’s go out on Friday.”</p>
<p>It felt like pushing out his last gasp on Gaia when he said, “<em>What?</em>”</p>
<p>The playful smile on her face disappeared.  She looked away, all but shrunk in on herself, shrugging.  “I mean, it could be fun?  But if you don’t want to…I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>He straightened up onto his feet, running a finger under his bow tie that suddenly felt much too tight.   “No, uh, great?  I mean, where?  Where would you want to go?”</p>
<p>She visibly relaxed then, a measure of her good humor returning despite his fumbling reply.  “I was thinking you might show me around Wall Market.  Since this is your neighborhood.”</p>
<p>He nodded.  That actually wasn’t a bad suggestion, and supposed he could manage the task given his total familiarity with the venue.  “Sure, yeah.  We can do that.  After work, then?  There might not be much left open at that hour, but I know a few spots that stay open well after the Inn closes.”</p>
<p>Eyes bright, she says, “That’d be great.  I look forward to it.”</p>
<p><em>Gaia,</em> so did he, even though that night also happened to coincide with Cloud’s last night as a honeybee.  As far as he was concerned at that moment, the rest of his days couldn’t come fast enough.</p><hr/>
<p>His final day arrives like all the others before, starting off with the dread that he never woke up from his couch, and that he only dreamed that Tifa had come to the Honeybee Inn-- but the feeling eases off by the time he changes out from his tuxedo that night.  It still feels like something of a lucid dream when he meets her out front, past the red curtain.  Figment or not, however, Tifa has the extra reason to celebrate tonight as her former employer agreed to keep her on the books just as she hoped, allowing her to truly take on his job like a bee to a flower patch.  She proved that this week.  She proves it even while out of uniform.   Although the <em>luster</em> Andrea had been seeking from him still seemed too confusing to take seriously anymore, he thinks he might be beginning to understand just by having watched her thrive.  She lights up a room with her mere presence, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.  </p>
<p>Especially now when she grins up at him, a dab of frosting smeared across her lip, having bitten into her chocobo bean pie with just the right amount of gusto.  The stall he found for them often stayed open for the drunks and local employees, such as two honeybees out on a date.</p>
<p>He keeps saying the word in his head.  <em>Date.  Date</em>, he thinks as he stares at her ridiculous face, wondering whether he ought to kiss her.   </p>
<p>Would she even want to keep doing stuff like this with him after he loses his job?  And if she did, would she just feel sorry? </p>
<p>All desire to kiss her vanishes up in smoke right then, so he thumbs his lip instead, signaling the state of her wearing as much of the pie as she was eating it.  She giggles, bashfully rolling her eyes at him as she wipes her lip with her thumb, then licks that off.</p>
<p>“That good?” he teases.</p>
<p>“Amazing.  I haven’t had one of those in ages,” she admits.  “Hey!  Can we check out the gym?”</p>
<p>He frowns.   “But we just ate.”</p>
<p>She scoffs, saying,  “I don’t want to work out.  I just want to see.”</p>
<p>He has to double-check, but from where they’re standing he does spot light beaming out from the gym’s open entryway down the street.  So he follows her lead as she rushes on ahead towards its beacon, turning at least half a dozen heads in her wake.  A far more primal urge to kiss her, right in the middle of the street, comes roaring back.</p>
<p>He settles himself down by the time they step inside the gym, where she scans the room with intense curiosity, back and forth over the array of weights, benches, and the nearby boxing ring.  At this hour, Cloud recognizes most of the handful of other clients from other businesses around Wall Market, lifting iron to blow off a little steam.</p>
<p>“Wow,” Tifa says.</p>
<p>“Can I help you, miss?”</p>
<p>As much a staple of the gym as its bench press, Jules approaches her, but his attention shifts when he catches sight of Cloud following in behind her.  He says,  “Oh hey, Cloud!  Didn’t expect to see you out so late.”</p>
<p>“Likewise.  I’m surprised you keep these kinds of hours.”</p>
<p>“The will to train never rests.  And just who do we have here?”</p>
<p>Cloud gestures to Tifa, saying, “Jules, this is Tifa. Tifa, Jules.  My trainer, as well as Andrea’s.”</p>
<p>“Really?” she says.</p>
<p>Jules, always buoyant as ever no matter what the hour, says, “Oh, so you’re Tifa!  Andi has told me all about you.”</p>
<p>She cocks her head.  “He has?” </p>
<p>“He mentioned you’re a martial artist.  I can tell just by looking at you that you’re no stranger to the mat.”</p>
<p>“Funny, that’s what Andrea told me, more or less. You have a talent in common, I suppose.”</p>
<p>“I’d say we have more than just that,” Jules says, grinning.</p>
<p>At her puzzled look, Cloud tells her, “Jules is Andi’s little brother.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know about little,” Jules adds, flexing a bicep.  </p>
<p>Tifa says, “Wow, you are?”</p>
<p>“That surprising, is it?” Jules says with a chuckle.</p>
<p>“Oh, no!  I’m sorry, there’s just a lot about Wall Market I still don’t know.”</p>
<p>Jules waves her off. “Don’t worry, I was just teasing.  It’s not like we really advertise it, but it’s also not much of a secret.” he says.  “And if Andi thinks you’re worth your salt, then I suppose I can let it go.”</p>
<p>She smiles, with a tinge of mischief.  “That’s not a challenge, is it?”</p>
<p>Jules laughs.  “Not unless you want it to be!  Why, you want to be the next champion, like Cloud here?”</p>
<p>“Champion?” she asks. </p>
<p>“You don’t know, do you?”  Jules says, eyes gaining that same, cursed spark as his elder brother.  “Speaking of open secrets!”</p>
<p>Cloud buries his face into his hand, but through his fingers he can see her look over to him with impish curiosity.   </p>
<p>She says, “He never mentioned it.”</p>
<p>Loud and inescapable, Jules puts him on the spot.  “Cloud!  Come on, my man.  Why not tell the lady what we call you around here?”</p>
<p>Cloud mumbles into his hand.  </p>
<p>“What was that?” Tifa asks, leaning her ear towards him.</p>
<p>He removes his hand from his face, repeating, “Sultan of Squats.”</p>
<p>Tifa laughs, blurting, “‘Sultan of Squats’?”</p>
<p>“Don’t,” Cloud warns, half-hearted, his annoyance already crumbling into a pained smile.</p>
<p>Jules says, “Yes, and he definitely earned it!  The only one to ever beat yours truly in a time-honored squat-off.”</p>
<p>“I’m very impressed,” Tifa says, still laughing.  “Maybe I will take you up on a challenge one day, Jules.”</p>
<p>“I look forward to it.  And since you’re a friend of Andi’s, anytime you want to train, my gym is open to you, free of charge.”</p>
<p>“Wow, thank you!”  Tifa says.</p>
<p>They bid Jules goodnight soon after.  Beside him, Tifa brims with what he can only describe as <em>fun</em> as they leave, laughing when she says <em>Sultan of Squats</em> again as if trying out a shiny new toy.   Her laughter is infectious enough that the <em>fun</em> even starts to sink in through his skin.   Neither of them had a drop to drink between them the whole night, yet he felt giddy as if he had chugged an entire keg, and to where it's a mental effort not to trip over cracks in the street.  Especially when, in a surreal bolt of wonder, he realizes he doesn’t hate it.  </p>
<p>He loves it, even. It’s heady to relish in some uninhibited <em>fun</em> for a change.  He glances over to her, still giggling to herself as they walk, and on pure playful impulse he butts his shoulder against hers. </p>
<p>“What?” she says.</p>
<p>For a half-second, he’s not really sure what he wanted to say to her, so he jerks his head back towards the gym. “Perks, I’m telling you.  You really scored well with this gig.”</p>
<p>“Yeah…” she sighs, blissful.</p>
<p>“Where else did you want to go?”</p>
<p>Her eyes trail over the ground as they stroll together, a soft smile bending her lip.  “I don’t know.  Actually...no, nevermind.”</p>
<p>He stops.  “What?”</p>
<p>She does the same, turning to him. “I’m sort of curious what your place looks like?”</p>
<p>His heart thuds, and his head starts to swim.</p>
<p>“I mean, you mentioned you live nearby, right?” she says, doing that thing where she curls a gorgeous lock of her hair behind her ear.</p>
<p>His head isn’t so much <em>swimming</em> as it is doing a doggy paddle in a hurricane.  He had not one drop to drink, he reminds himself, but the thought of bringing her by his apartment makes him stagger.  Literally, his back foot catches on a bump, and he ungracefully catches himself before toppling over.  “Shit," he blurts.</p>
<p>“Sorry, nevermind,” she says, bordering on urgent as she spins back around.</p>
<p>At the sight of her turning around, leaving him, he sobers instantly.  “Hold on,” he calls.</p>
<p>It makes her stop again so that he can catch up.  Standing close to her, and out of earshot of anyone else, he says, “I didn’t say no.”  </p>
<p>Her garnet-hued eyes brighten, more captivating than all the neon around them. </p>
<p>Then, shrugging, and still feeling the <em>fun</em> coursing through him like a drug, he adds,  “I mean, if you’re really that desperate to know what working at the Inn can afford, then I guess we can stop by.”</p>
<p>She grins.  “Lead on, then.”</p>
<p>And when they make it the few blocks to his apartment building, they aren’t even fully up the stairs before they’re kissing.</p>
<p>Maybe he shouldn’t have felt this surprised, but his nerves jump like live wires.  He’s not really sure who initiated it.  Just in one second they were stepping up the last remaining step, and in the next they had leaned in to each other, hands slipping behind each other’s backs and holding each other closer as they stumbled for his door, his backside hitting it with a thud. </p>
<p>She kisses him.  She kisses him, and kisses him, mouths molding against one another in a scalding frenzy.  It still amazes him that they were both stone cold sober, with only a tinge of sweet pie lingering on her tongue as it presses against his.  He moans at the taste mixed with her own sweetness, holding her even more tightly against him, glad that there was nothing else dulling a single one of his senses except for <em>her, her, her.</em></p>
<p>But suddenly, she pops off of his lips.  Staring straight at him, cheeks flushed and chest heaving, she whispers, “Sorry.”</p>
<p>He searches her face for a clue.  “What for?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.  I wasn’t actually thinking about this when I suggested we go to your place.”</p>
<p>“Neither was I when I said yes.”  It was sort of true.  He had no fucking idea what he was doing, really.</p>
<p>She swallows, licking her swollen lips.  “Yet here we are.”</p>
<p>He echoes, “Yet here we are.”  </p>
<p>His gut drops, thinking he had somehow fucked all this up, and he was about to snap awake from this amazing dream.</p>
<p>But then lip twitches into a smile, and then they’re kissing again, and it’s <em>real.</em>  </p>
<p>Too real, like he can’t get enough, scared that he might explode if it tried to fully comprehend that he was kissing her again.  He still hasn’t processed kissing her the first time.  Her, Tifa, who was giving back as enthusiastically as she was receiving.  All too soon, he has to pull back to suck air into his lungs and turn around just enough to get the door lock.  Her hands don’t stop wandering all over his torso, driving him mad.</p>
<p>They burst through his door, doorknob banging against the sheet metal wall.  He slams it closed with his heel, latching his lips to her collarbone and tasting her skin.  She’s breathing hard, sighing, sweating, and so is he as they stumble further inside.  He only just manages to flick on a lightswitch, the burst of light illuminating the sorry state of his bachelor pad.  He doesn’t even own a bed, because apparently he’s an enormous idiot.  But she doesn’t seem to care in the slightest with the way she finds his couch and drags him toward it.  </p>
<p>He doesn’t care either, really, and about much of anything except for her, especially when she pushes him down to sit and straddles his hips.  Their kisses renew in their fervor, making him lightheaded, having barely recovered from making out in his doorway.  He could pass out and die, and even then his sheer willpower might not let him stop, especially not when she grinds down on him, pressing their clothed groins together so deliciously.</p>
<p>He moans, their kisses turning into little more than panting against each others’ mouths, her warm breath intoxicating him faster than any hard liquor.  But the heady throb of pleasure that races through him also shocks his head into focus.  Since neither of them had planned this, just how far did they intend to go?  </p>
<p>“Tifa,” he says against her lips, slurred.  She must misinterpret him, because she covers the sound of her name with her lips, licking into his mouth. She tries to grind down on him again, but he somehow digs up his last remaining reserves of self-control, stilling her with his hands digging into her waist.</p>
<p>She lurches against his restraint, pulling her lips away when she gets the message.  She sits back on his thighs.  “Cloud?”</p>
<p>His chest heaves, swallowing down fresh oxygen, steeling his nerve enough to say, “Just wanted to check in before we get too carried away.”</p>
<p>She smiles down at him, almost shy despite the way that they were practically devouring each other half a minute ago.  Her eyes dart away, then back to him, as if she were considering something. </p>
<p>“I told you why I ended up in Midgar.  But do you want to know why I stayed?” she asks.</p>
<p>He blinks up at her, thrown by the seeming randomness of the question.  “Because Nibelheim is gone.”</p>
<p>She shakes her head.  “And I could have gone anywhere else after I recovered.  I could have restarted my life anywhere else but this festering hellpit of a city.”</p>
<p>A fair assessment.  “So why didn’t you?”</p>
<p>“Because I wanted...I hoped, that maybe I’d run into you.” </p>
<p>He stares up at her, mouth falling open and slack-jawed, unable to muster a more brilliant response than, “Oh.”</p>
<p>She plays with a spike of his hair.  “Or at least read about how you were doing on the news or in the paper.”</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>She lets go, and wraps her arms around herself.  “Oh course I did.  I had to know that you were still alive.” </p>
<p>He feels her going away again, so he grips her tighter.  “Tifa.”</p>
<p>“I never stopped thinking about you.  Not even after all these years.  I was reminded of that the second I recognized you at the Inn.”</p>
<p>He leans up and crushes himself against her lips again.  He needs her to stop talking, before she has him reduced to tears.  He kisses her hard, with all the adoration he’s held for her since his youth, his every misfiring nerve in his brain screaming <em>me too, Tifa.  Me too</em>.</p>
<p>He pulls back again, and when he looks up into her eyes, soft with open affection, he knows he has to tell her.</p>
<p>He blurts, “Andrea’s firing me tomorrow.”</p>
<p>The softness disappears from her face, like seeds blowing off a dandelion.  “What?”</p>
<p>“Andrea needs someone who can light up a room, or so he puts it.  I don’t do that enough, apparently.  But you do.  He’s right about you.”</p>
<p>“What are you talking about?”</p>
<p>He shrugs.  “The night before you came to the Inn, Andrea gave me a week to figure myself out.  I’ve got nothing, and my time’s up.  So.”</p>
<p>She stiffens in his arms, and it’s the worst feeling when disappointment tinges her next words.  “Why didn’t you say something to me?  Why do you sound like you’ve given up?”</p>
<p>“I haven’t <em>given up</em>,” he says, indignant, but the observation still pierces deep.  He pouts, and he knows he does.  “I’m just not stupid.  Clearly, Andi thinks you can do a better job.  And he’s right.  You’re perfect, Tifa.  I didn’t say anything...”  He hesitates.  “I don’t know why.  But I’m sorry I waited until now.”</p>
<p>Tifa huffs, her hands running over his shoulders.  “It’s alright, but I'm shocked.  I just can’t believe that Andrea would do that to you.  There’s no way I’m staying there, then.” </p>
<p>“No way.  What did I say about you refusing because of me?  Besides, you said you needed the pay, and that it would let you afford your own bar in no time.”</p>
<p>“Who cares about that?  I’ll just...I’ll go back to Promised Land full time.  It doesn’t matter.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> care.  And what do you mean, ‘it doesn’t matter’?  I don’t understand...why would you do that?”</p>
<p>She meets his gaze with a startling intensity.  “Because you’re not there with me.  Don’t you get that?”</p>
<p>He swallows.  “Tifa…”</p>
<p>“I just...I thought that us working together was a dream come true.  After all that’s happened, being together...this has been the best week of my life, Cloud.   Andrea must be <em>insane</em>.  You are the brightest star in a room!”</p>
<p>He grips her tighter around her waist, his stomach doing somersaults.  “Then what do I do?  What should I do?”</p>
<p>She kisses him, chaste and sweet.  She says, “You just have to fight for it.  Say his timeline is unreasonable, no argument.  Say it’s bullshit altogether.  Andrea seems like he’s a tough love type, but agreeable so long as you can prove to him that you care.”  She blinks, looking off to the side.  “Funny, he’s a lot like Master Zangan that way.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know about your Master, but you also don’t know Andrea as well as I do.  He is fair, but he’s also someone whose word tends to stick.”</p>
<p>“Then you could tell him that you’re learning from me, and you need more time to prove it to him.  I’ll back you up on that.”</p>
<p>His eyebrow quirks at that.  He purses his lip, turning over her suggestion in his mind.   “That could work, actually.  Take advantage of your golden child status on my behalf.”</p>
<p>She laughs.  “I know,” she says with a wink.  “I once heard some good wisdom that says it pays to have connections.”</p>
<p>He just…</p>
<p>He fucking<em> loves</em> her.  It’s got to be love.  </p>
<p>His eyes flicker over her.  Whatever the case, this whole time he’s still been hopelessly turned on while she’s been perched on his lap.  Despite that, he’s not sure how to broach this topic of <em>them</em>.  “Alright, I’ll do my best.  But if it doesn’t work out…Would you still…”</p>
<p>He shifts his hips, reminding her of what he had interrupted.  </p>
<p>She sighs at the contact, her eyes glazing with arousal.  “Definitely.” </p>
<p>He does it again, firmer, grinding them together.  But his disappointment, apparently, would have to last a little longer when she says, “Wait.”</p>
<p>He stops his movement, except to bring his hands down to rest over her amazing thighs. </p>
<p>“I...I actually have a confession, too,” she tells him. </p>
<p>His ears perk.  “Huh?”</p>
<p>She doesn’t meet his eyes, clearly wrestling with herself.  “You ought to know that my paycheck isn’t just going towards my rent and start-up costs for my own bar.”</p>
<p>His brow knits.  “And what else is there?”</p>
<p>“It’s Avalanche,” she says. </p>
<p>He processes it for a second.  “Ava...Avalanche.  Like, the anti-Shinra terrorist group?  The one whose posters I have to tear off our door jambs every week?  That Avalanche?”</p>
<p>“That’s the one,” she admits.  “I’m a sympathizer.  I’m not sure if I’d go out of my way to say I’m a member yet, but I’ve been donating all of my leftover money to the cell in Sector 7.”</p>
<p>Cloud purses his lip again.  He had expected worse, honestly.  “So what you’re saying is I’ve been making out with a beautiful eco-terrorist this whole time?”</p>
<p>“Cloud, be serious.”</p>
<p>“I am.  So you’re mixed up with Shinra’s most wanted.  I get you.”</p>
<p>“If that bothers you, I get it.  You were right to stop this, us, in that case,” she points between them.</p>
<p>He wants to laugh, but she had told him to be serious.  So he says, quite seriously, “Not a chance.  Tifa...I haven’t stopped thinking about you, either.  In truth, I could have afforded to go back to the village over a year ago, but I worried about what you’d think of me.  I thought maybe if I had more money than President Shinra himself, then maybe you’d give me the time of day.”</p>
<p>She looks down at how they are seated, her hands on his shoulders, his hands on her thighs. “That’s clearly ridiculous.”</p>
<p>His lip tugs into a smirk.  “I know.  But it’s always been true that no matter what anyone’s ever said to me, it’s your opinion that counts.”</p>
<p>“So...you don’t mind? About what I said?”</p>
<p>He leans forward, pressing his lips to the column of her throat.  Between kisses, he says, “According to you, Shinra let our hometown burn, Tifa,” Cloud starts, hands sliding up her thighs. “If anything, you should tell me where I can donate my paycheck.”</p>
<p>Tifa huffs, and he feels the groan in her throat against his lips when his hands smooth over her ass, and back down her thighs.  “<em>Fuck</em>, Cloud.”</p>
<p>He kisses under her jaw, somehow even more painfully turned on at the sound of her cursing.  He thinks he can feel her pulse flutter against his sensitive cheeks.  He asks, “Any other confessions, you think?  Or do you think we can pick up where we left off?”</p>
<p>She angles her lips down and demands, “Kiss me again.”</p>
<p>He does.  Gladly.  Their heart-to-heart did nothing to dampen the explosive chemistry between them, their urgency reintroduced like oxygen to a fire.  Shirts fly off their backs in the resulting backdraft, the skin-to-skin of their exposed selves consuming his every other thought but <em>Tifa, Tifa, Tifa. </em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Credit goes to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyward_bloom">skyward_bloom</a> for that tidbit about Jules being Andrea's brother.  Mind. Blown.  You should definitely go check out their stuff, too, by the way!</p>
<p>I also just want to mention that the next chapter is looking like it might cross into E territory...because whereas some have merely adopted the horny jail...me?  I was born in it</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for sticking with me and reading this far!  It's been a fun ride trying to pull a somewhat intelligible story together based on a colossal whim.   All your feedback has kept me going!</p><p>I'm also changing the fic rating to E for this chapter, as well as for the next and final.  I wasn't sure if I'd write any explicit smut by the end but you know what?  As a wise man once said, there's no stoppin' this train we're on...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cloud blinks away the darkness, finding the first rays of morning light reflected in the mane of chestnut hair at his side.  Tifa snores quietly, her breath warming his shoulder.  Her weight, her skin fits so perfectly against his, and he can’t resist stroking a finger across her bare back.  The both of them lie naked and tangled together across the couch, save for the scrap of a blanket he had found to cover them before they each slipped off into slumber.</p><p>It’s a shitty couch, and a piece that he only liked for the fact that he could lie his full length across it comfortably, but whatever passing thoughts he ever had about replacing the thing died forever last night.  It’s ratty upholstery and crushed springs had held nothing but precious memories, now.</p><p>Last night he had flipped Tifa to sit on its center cushion, and she had been shocked breathless when her suspenders fell away, and her pleated skirt hit the floor with a dull thud.  Red boots came off and leggings stayed on.  He then knelt before her, lavishing her inner thighs with tender kisses and gentle sucks.   She spread her knees wider as his lips traveled closer to her core, and she shivered when he kissed her through her panties.</p><p>And when the article was stripped away and hung loosely around her ankle, he looked up and found eyes like night staring back at him through the valley of her perfect breasts, heaving with anticipation.  Giving her one last opportunity to stop him before her sweet scent drove him insane.</p><p>“Tifa,” he breathed, intending it as a question.</p><p>His breath had rolled over her, making her shudder, and she raked her gentle fingers over his scalp on the back of his head.  </p><p>“Please.”</p><p>With that whispered word, the gravity turned up in that small studio apartment, the desire crushing.  Permission gained, he all but dove forward like a starving man, encouraged by her hand on the back of his head guiding him to her.  He tried at first to be less of an animal.  He wanted to treat her like the delicacy she was, but the instant his tongue made contact, sweeping up her musky flavor, his brain shorted out at her molten taste.  He growled, sucking her in with filthy, wet smacks of his lips.  He couldn’t stop himself from hooking his arms under her thighs, yanking her forward, and holding her in place so he could feast.  She thrashed, she moaned, she jerked with ecstasy, but nothing couldn’t have pried him loose until he had his fill of her.  </p><p>She came even as he continued to devour her, back taut like a bow string and thighs shuddering around his ears, and he just had to make her do it again. </p><p>The second time she came, she pushed him away roughly with a hard tap to his shoulder, and only then did he snap out of his frenzy.  He planted one last kiss, then rose from his sore knees and plopped down beside her.  His eyes swept over her, relishing the look of flushed rapture on her, pleased as punch with the way her skin glistened and his tongue registered nothing else but her taste.  He had forgotten all about himself until he sat down next to her, and only then did her peel his own trousers down and pull himself out into the air for some relief.  Hand wrapped around his angry cock, he would have waited like that all night for her to come back down from her peak.  </p><p>Even after a second orgasm, with the way she turned her head, her lidded gaze sweeping over him and finding him with his cock in hand, he could have almost sworn she was fully aroused again.  Her lips crashed into his, and she batted his hand away.  She swept her tongue over his greedily, and knowing she could taste herself on him, it took only a pathetic amount of strokes for him to finish over the both of them.</p><p>All in all, it turned out to be a pretty good date.</p><p>Now, in that next morning, the memories of her sounds, her warmth, her taste hits him like a series of runaway train cars, and smacks his tongue thinking he might still taste her.  It makes his cock twitch almost instantly to standing attention, his arousal fueled by the focus of his desire tucked perfectly between him and the back of the couch, her legs woven around his.    </p><p>He wants to fuck her, properly, and thinks that he really ought to buy a bed before then.  He winces at himself, running his free hand over his face.  <em>Gaia, what a classy bastard you are, thinking about having an actual </em>bed<em> for her.</em> A presumptuous bastard, too.  Would she even want to do this again, even after all they said last night?  </p><p>“Cloud?” </p><p>His name follows a drowsy snort, and she stirs.  Her voice, sleepy and craggy, call his attention to her face as she rotates to look up to him, resting her chin in the crook of his shoulder.  </p><p>Hand wrapped around her, he strokes his knuckles down the center of her back.  “Hey.”</p><p>She squints.  Then yawns.  She extends an arm and a leg in a wide stretch.  “What time is it?”</p><p>Her skin feels so good sliding against his, and she didn’t seem to be freaking out yet.  So he says, “Time for a really good morning?”</p><p>He emphasizes with a brief wiggle of his hips, cock well and truly on its way to hardness.  She turns her face into his shoulder, making a poor attempt to hide an adorable smile and a blush, and making him think that she just might be the death of him.  Once she composes herself, she stretches up to plant a firm kiss on his lips.  It throws gasoline on the fire, and he pulls her so she slides further over top of him.</p><p>His gut sinks, however, when she pulls back and he sees a bleak expression looking down at him.  “I can’t," she says.</p><p>She abruptly extracts herself, her amazing body sliding across him, her residual warmth left behind in the blanket a poor substitute.  She stands over him in naked glory, and he reaches up for her hand before she can move any further away.  Looking down at his hand, she cocks her brow.</p><p>“Can’t, or won’t?”  he asks, assaulted with the pathetic mental image of himself, but he doesn’t really care.  His heart hammers, wondering if he has pushed his luck too far, and awaits his fate.</p><p>She must notice his distress, because she bends down to kiss his forehead. “It's 'can’t'.  Trust me, you make for a tempting argument, but I wasn’t expecting to spend the night,” she tells him.  “And I do have appointments this afternoon.  I need both a shower and my uniform.”</p><p>He grabs her hand again.  The curls between her thighs beckon him, but his gaze flickers back up to hers.  “Can’t you call out today?” he bargains.  “Or just shower here.  Take another carriage if it’ll save you time.”</p><p>She smiles, gentle yet tight.  He senses a flicker of hesitation, so he bolts upright, swings his legs around, and pulls her to him.  She yelps in surprise, her hands landing on his shoulders, but melts with a sigh when his lips find her navel, and he begins to gently suck and kiss at every inch of skin. </p><p>“Cloud!” she says, but her warning is blunted by a breathless laugh, her fingers threading through his scalp.  </p><p>“Stay,” he says, lips against her belly, his hands sliding up the backs of her thighs.  </p><p>“I really can’t.”</p><p>He stops his kisses to look up at her, saying, “Please.”</p><p>The sudden increase in gravity returns, and he thinks she might relent with the way her chest starts to rise and fall, and her skin flushes under his hands.</p><p>Yet defeat would have to be snatched from the jaws of victory, for her resolve is like iron.  She shakes her head, pushing back from him.  She stoops to collect her discarded clothing, saying, “I had a really great time, Cloud.”   He wants to believe her.  “But it’s not just customers I’m thinking about.  I also want to make sure my landlady isn’t putting out any missing person fliers already.”</p><p>Cloud snorts.  “Your landlady would do that?”</p><p>She gives a long-suffering sigh, but it’s paired with a fond smile as she pulls her bra and tank top over her head.  “She means well.  She did look out for me when I was getting back on my feet here in Midgar.  I think I’m more like a granddaughter to her now than a tenant, but it also means she can be a bit of a worry wart.”</p><p>“Oh,” he says, frowning, sad to watch her beautiful body disappear behind each restored article of clothing.  Coming from anyone else, he might have wondered if the stuff about her landlady was utter bullshit, but he couldn’t imagine Tifa being anything else but sincere.  And if she did have someone looking out for her that fiercely, then he wasn't exactly one to feel mad about it.</p><p>She says, “And I told her only that I’d be back late.  I wasn’t counting on...I mean, I’m <em>glad</em>, but...”</p><p>Having conceded defeat, he stops her, saying, “Don’t worry, I get it.  Guess it would be rude of me to keep you in that case,” trying not to let too much of his disappointment seep in.</p><p>“Thanks, Cloud.”</p><p>Her eyes flicker downward, but she then glances away, a sudden reminder of his own state of dress.  He scrambles for his own discarded clothes, stuffing his arousal back inside his briefs and trousers, resigned to suffer in neglect.</p><p>As she finishes slipping on her boots, she says, “Besides, you have your own day to worry about, too, don’t you?”</p><p>With a drawn-out sigh, he slumps back down on the couch again.  As if his morale hadn’t already been completely in the shitter.  But then her hand touches his cheek, then slides under his chin.  She lifts his gaze to hers, and she must see the troubled storm reflected back.  </p><p>She straddles him again, much in the same way she had last night.  It was both wonderful and unfair the effect she had on him.  The mere contact sweeps aside his misery like it was made of cobwebs, and she blanks out the rest of his tortured thoughts with a searing kiss.  </p><p>When she pulls back from kissing him, she says, “You remember what I said?”</p><p>He brings his hand up to where hers is resting dead center on his chest.  “I’ll fight for it,” he tells her.</p><p>Gaze softening, she pecks him chastely on the lips.  “No matter what happens, I treasure this,” she says, shifting her hand to his left side, over his beating heart.  </p><p>He clutches her hand to him, sliding his fingers over her knuckles.  </p><p>“Yours, too.”</p><p>And it’s like rain on parched ground when she breaks into a smile and tells him, “You really are sweet, Cloud.  No matter what happens, I think we should <em>definitely</em> do this again.”</p><hr/><p>He manages to let Tifa go somehow, bidding her goodbye at Wall Market’s grand entrance, trying not to feel like a vital part of him goes with her when she waves back at him.  </p><p>Another part of him, however, seems to mutate as the morning passes into afternoon, like her hand over his chest that morning had seared a rune into his flesh, imbuing him with a general sense of just not giving a shit.</p><p>It may not have been the most eloquent way to describe it, nor the most precise, but it’s all he can come up with to describe the way he feels as he buttons up his dress shirt for the last time.  Or rather, it’s the <em>absence</em> of what he expected to feel.  The shot of nerves and gut-gnawing dread he thought might plague him once the Honeybee Inn’s bawdy entrance came into view never materializes.  It still doesn’t when he checks himself over in the dressing room mirror.  Instead, he just doesn’t give a shit.</p><p>“Well, look at you, Cloud.”</p><p>He runs into Sadie in the foyer, and she puts a hand on her hip, expression coy and impish.  Cloud looks down at himself, sure he had dressed himself to perfection like a professional, even if it is his last day. </p><p>She rolls her eyes.  “Silly.  I mean you’re glowing."</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“You and Tifa really hit it off, huh?”</p><p>His brain valiantly holds back his memories of last night, but some still manage to slip through.  His face grows hot. “Um, well…”</p><p>Sadie laughs, batting him on the arm.  “Relax.  It looks good on you.  Really good.  I ain’t never seen you so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”</p><p>“What looks good?”</p><p>Sadie just continues to laugh as she walks past him, and a week ago that might have bothered him.  But today? </p><p>Today, he doesn’t give a shit.  </p><p>He doesn’t give a shit, either, about waiting around like a trained lapdog for when Andrea deigns to summon him.  Cloud had made it a point to arrive earlier in the day, ready to rip this bandage off sooner rather than later, so he ignores the receptionist who had been dusting in the lobby, calling for him to <em>wait just a moment!</em> as he barges on ahead upstairs.</p><p>He doesn’t check over himself.  He doesn’t look down at his shoes.  He also doesn’t listen for whether Andrea might already have someone else with him when the office door comes into reach.  He doesn’t give a shit, so he simply raises his knuckles and knocks.</p><p>At first there’s no answer.  Not even a shuffle of footsteps.  Fuck it.  He knocks again, louder.</p><p>This time the door springs open, revealing only Andrea, who frowns at him. “Cloud?  Is something urgent?”</p><p><em>Is something urgent?</em>  It’s as if Andrea had splashed him with gasoline, causing a sudden flare of irritation in Cloud’s breast.  With enough composure, however, he says,  “I’d like to speak with you now.”</p><p>Andrea snorts like an awoken dragon, but says, “Then make it quick.  I’m rather busy.”</p><p>“I’d like to talk to you about my employment.”</p><p>Andrea looks puzzled for a long, awkward moment.  But then, his eyes flicker, the creases in his brow softening.  “Oh, yes.  That.  I had almost forgot.  Has it been a week already?”</p><p>Cloud’s irritation almost smothers under complete bafflement.  <em>Almost forgot?  How could he have </em>almost forgot<em>?</em></p><p>Andrea steps aside, allowing Cloud inside and shutting the door behind him.  “Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the empty guest chair.  Cloud accepts, sitting himself down while Andrea chooses to lean against the corner of his desk.  The latter folds his arms, his gaze studying Cloud as it sweeps over him.  </p><p>“So then, Cloud,” he starts.  “Now that you’ve had a week.  How are you feeling?”</p><p>A pang of guilt spears through him, knowing Tifa had told him to fight for this.  But as he sits there, suddenly feeling ten shades of ridiculous in the tuxedo he used to love, he just couldn’t muster the care.  </p><p>He doesn’t give a shit anymore.  Or at least, not like he used to.  Any argument would just sound like trying too hard, and would ring hollow.   </p><p>Cloud looks Andrea straight in the eye and cuts right to the chase.  “You’re right to want Tifa instead of me.  She has whatever luster it is you’re looking for.  So if you’re going to fire me, then fire me.  I’ll be okay.”</p><p>And it’s the truth.  The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes he kind of hates living in Wall Market, anyway.  Maybe he always did.  Too bright, too noisy, too fake.  He thinks about the dark night of Sector 7, the myriad false stars of the plate above, and how much more authentic it felt.  He wonders if Tifa wouldn’t mind if he looked for a cheaper place in her neighborhood.  Maybe even ask if there’s a vacancy at Stargazer Heights, obtrusive landladies aside.  He could probably afford it with his pile of saved up cash and doing whatever needed doing around town.  </p><p><em>Yeah</em>, he thinks, his chest swelling with...something.  Determination, perhaps, and an easy confidence in his future.  He sits up straighter, his eyes never wavering from Andrea’s.</p><p>Andrea’s lips pull into a smile.  Despite the invigorating feeling in his chest, Cloud nonetheless braces for the axe to fall.</p><p>The axe falls, but this one cuts differently when Andrea says,  “Fire you?  Why on Gaia would I do that?”</p><p>Cloud starts, his brain struggling to absorb the question.  “What?  But you said…”</p><p>“You found your luster, haven’t you?”  Andrea says.</p><p>Cloud clams up, his heartbeat racing in his throat.  He glances away, struck speechless.</p><p>Patiently, Andrea gives him the silence to think, to understand, and reflect.  To consider how much had changed for him in a single week.  And really, ever since he found <em>her</em> underneath the bar, rubbing at her scalp, dressed in that hideous uniform, it had been a heady whirlwind that ignited him. The drab existence of working under the gilded roof of the Honeybee Inn never crossed his mind, and with her at his side, he suspects it never will again.</p><p>He also learned he had lost his childhood home.  <em>Home</em>, he thinks, swallowing around his dry throat.  It hurts, his mourning still fresh and raw.  Tifa, too, had endured such harrowing experience.  But when his imagination drifts to how she had smiled last night, and how at ease she seemed, tucked so perfectly warm and snug against him, he also thinks that maybe with enough time, they would eventually build another.  For her, he would just have to figure it out, one step at a time.  </p><p>So he says, “I suppose I have.”</p><p>“Good.  I could tell the moment I caught you both in my lobby, looking at one other like the most precious thing in the world.  More importantly, I can tell just by the way you barged in here that you’ve changed.  You’re practically beaming with <em>joie de vivre</em>, and it suits you much better.  Now, I hope that you never let it go again.”</p><p>“Wait a second.  So you <em>didn’t</em> hire Tifa to replace me?” </p><p>Andrea reels. “Oh, dear me.  That’s what you thought, is it?  Well, I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind.  That is, if your character <em>had</em> been too dull to appreciate the opportunity I handed you on a platter.” </p><p><em>Appreciate. </em> Cloud huffs at that, peeved at his boss’ thoughtless eccentricity, although not for the first time in the years he’s worked for him.  Even if the intentions were...well, who the hell knew except Andrea?   “So, what does all this mean?  You’re not planning to let go Tifa, then, are you?”</p><p>“Goodness, no.  I see I still have yet to cure you of assuming the worst.  No, I have much, much brighter plans for the both of you, if you’re agreeable.”</p><p>“Both of us," Cloud repeats back, incredulous.  "So, two royal honeybees?”</p><p>Andrea says,  “Indeed.  As King and a Queen, I expect you both would rule my kingdom as a brilliant pair in my absence.”</p><p>The implication of <em>absence</em> sinks like a stone in Cloud’s gut, and his earlier irritation plunges with it.  “You’re not leaving, are you?” </p><p>Andrea chuckles, saying, “I’m not dying, Cloud, so stop looking at me that way.  Not <em>permanently</em>, no.  Before I tell you why, I ask that you keep this close to your vest.”</p><p>“Alright.”</p><p>“Good. You see, I have come to fancy the idea of expanding my business.  Topside.”</p><p>Cloud tries, but he can hardly imagine how grand an Inn on top of the plate would look like.  “Holy shit.”</p><p>Andrea smirks.  “Indeed.  With business booming, I’m feeling a bit cramped for space.  Once the second location gets off the ground, it will require most of my attention, which is why I need good lieutenants to hold down the fort here, as it were.”</p><p>Cloud slouches backward, stunned.  He couldn’t believe it.  Any of it.</p><p>Andrea scratches under his chin, saying, “Naturally, I would continue to compensate the both of you handsomely for the added responsibility.  I also intended to share this with the both of you at the same time, but since we’re here, I permit you to discuss it with Tifa if you wish.  I await your reply in the coming days.  But do make it quick, as I am currently in final discussions with my architect.”</p><p>“We’ll definitely talk it over.  Thank you,” Cloud says.</p><p>“No need to thank me.  You’re doing me the favor to consider the responsibility.  I’m quite proud of you, Cloud.  I hope you know that.”</p><p>Cloud nods, feeling ridiculous at relishing in the praise, and from someone who pisses him off so much sometimes.  “I guess it all worked out, at least.”</p><p>“Perhaps, although I do also wish to offer you my sincerest apology for causing you any undue stress.  As a token of my sincerity, I want you and Tifa both to take another night off.  I doubt either of you have had so many in years.”</p><p>Cloud chuckles at that, because it’s painfully true.  Plus, the idea of having another night free with Tifa makes him almost embarrassingly giddy.  He stands up, having the weirdest urge to hug the man before him, but Cloud manages to keep himself restrained.</p><p>Meanwhile, Andrea’s capricious mood flips again, and he flicks his hand impatiently toward the door.  “What are you still doing here?  Out with you.”</p><hr/><p>There’s a couple hours left to kill before Tifa would show up for work at the Inn that evening, so when he leaves behind the red curtain, having cast off his gilded tuxedo and ecstatic in his relief, he indulges in the first impulse that comes to mind.</p><p>He buys himself a bed.</p><p>A whole mattress, and with a <em>bed frame</em>, even.   Nice pillows and sheets, too, from a reseller in town that deals in topside-quality goods.  </p><p>He hauls it upstairs to his flat with an extra pair of hands from the shop, and only then does his spontaneous zeal dampen somewhat.  The thought to measure hadn't occurred to him until that moment.  Luck and determination, however, helps grease the edges as he figures a way to orient the massive thing and cram it inside.  The added piece creates a narrow, but human-sized corridor between his couch and the side of the bed, connecting his front door to his kitchenette in the back.  It works, and so after brushing off his hands and cooling off a touch, it’s off to the pharmacy as his next errand.</p><p>The owner gives him a free dose of shit along with his intended purchase, but he had long been prepared for some teasing.  Preparation seems to be a theme today.</p><p>He shaves off some more time shooting the shit with Jules, but eventually, he circles back to the Inn.   Midgar’s walls in the distance chip away at the light of dusk, and would-be patrons have already begun assembling in wait for the curtain to draw open for the evening.  Some of them are already buzzing with drink, their conversations loud and nonstop.  Awash in neon, he waits for her by the entrance with arms crossed, absentmindedly tapping his foot.</p><p>His earlier zeal fizzles out into a puff of exhaust now that he had slowed down, his imagination dragging along with him.  Almost as strong as his impulse to buy it, he wrestles with an overwhelming urge to race back to his apartment and return his stupid, too-big bed.  </p><p>Wasn’t he moving too fast?  She said this morning she wanted to do <em>this</em> again, but wouldn't buying a bed the next day seem like a little...much?  Beyond desperate and pathetic, really.  But he also wanted to treat her right, didn’t he?  When he sees all the janes and johns lined up at the Inn, champing at the bit and eager to indulge a slice of fleeting fantasy, it turns his stomach to imagine making her feel like anything but the real deal.  </p><p>Then why did he feel so awkward about it?  It was only a bed.  It wasn’t like he went out and bought an engagement ring.  And if <em>that</em> didn’t send a heady image racing through to his core...</p><p>“Cloud?”</p><p>He looks up, snapped out from his mental seesawing, and thinks maybe he should have spent the money on a ring.   </p><p>She’s only in her casual outfit, pushing past the throng of gathered people, but no amount of preparation could have softened the gut-punch of seeing her face again, even after mere hours.  After years, honestly.  It's all the same rush as when he found her under the bar.  No matter what, her dazzle truly seemed to strike his every corner, scouring away his darkness.  It reinvigorates him, sending blood pumping through his ears, making him feel like an idiot all over again.</p><p>She rushes up to him, her face falling when she takes him in his own plain, drab street clothes.  “Oh no.  What happened?”</p><p>
  <em>Whatever happens, happens, won't it?</em>
</p><p>Intense worry begins to mar her expression.  “Cloud?”</p><p>He's an idiot for her, so he answers her by taking her face in hands, and kissing her.  </p><p>Someone wolf whistles, but he doesn’t care until she pushes him back.  “What’s gotten into you?”</p><p>“I’m still a honeybee,” he tells her, hands still cupping her cheeks.  “Andrea wants us <em>both</em> to stay.”</p><p>She breaks into a grin like sunlight through clouds.  “That's wonderful!  I knew you could do it."  She throws her arms around him as she says it, but she soon pushes back again, her concern returning in force.  “But then why are you standing out here?  Why aren’t you dressing for work?”</p><p>He shrugs.  “We’ve got the night off again, courtesy of the boss.  If you’re hungry, I was thinking we check out the monster burger stall this time.”</p><p>She looks at him like he himself grew a monster's head.  “The night off again?  Really?”</p><p>“Really.  It's an apology to me, and a peace offering I think."</p><p>She blinks, and doesn’t look like she fully believes him.  “Why?”</p><p>“How about I’ll tell you about it on the way?” he says, threading his fingers in hers and tugging her along.  </p><p>They make it only a step before she halts, rigid as a statue.  “No.  Tell me what's going on.”</p><p>He glances around, the crowd too thick here for him to feel comfortable.  “Not here?”</p><p>“What’s the matter?” she asks, stubbornly fixed in place.  “You’re acting weird.”</p><p>Sighing, he leans in.  He whispers in her ear. </p><p>When he finishes, her eyes widen, her hand flying to cover her mouth.</p><p>Cloud says, “So, come on.  I’ll tell you more about our meeting once we find a good place to sit.”</p><p>She still doesn’t budge when he takes her hand in his again, trying to coax her to follow.  Worried, he tilts until he catches her eye.  “What’s up?”</p><p>Hesitating, she starts, “I...I don't know.  I'm just stunned.  I mean, <em>us?</em>"  She glances back over her shoulder, and up at the Inn's bright, tacky lights.  "And for how long?"</p><p>"Honestly, I'm not sure.  Andi did give us time to think about it and talk it over, so let's plan on doing that.  I know the commitment may throw a wrench in your timeline, so we'll just have to figure out what's going to work best for you."</p><p>She frowns.  "For me?  And what about you?"</p><p>"Whatever's good for you is good for me."</p><p>"Cloud..."</p><p>They turn to walk together, the radiant glow of the Inn disappearing behind darkened buildings as they slip through the maze of streets.  She still seems sluggish as she walks with him, her eyes far off and unfocused.</p><p>"What do you want to do, Tifa?" he asks her.</p><p>She stops and says, "I kind of feel like having a quiet night tonight, actually.”</p><p>His gut drops.  “Oh.”</p><p>She must notice the panic that eclipses him, because she touches his arm and says, “I mean, let’s maybe not spend our free evening in Wall Market?”</p><p>His brow lifts at that.</p><p>“There’s some spots in Sector 7 that are pretty nice, although not as flashy.  Maybe we could try there instead?” she says.  </p><p>He blinks.  Intrusively, he thinks about the all the effort and through he put in for his new bed that day.  He almost wants to laugh when he finds himself mentally shrugging over it.  Her suggestion is so much better than anything he could have come up with.</p><p>When he doesn't answer her right away, she says, “Or not.  We don’t have-”</p><p>“Yes,” he interrupts.    “I mean, I’d love to.  Sector 7 it is, then.”</p><p>Her shoulders relax, and she smiles.  “Great,” she says. </p><p>He starts, eyes darting downward when her hand collapses around his, and she weaves her fingers through his.  He remembers how he had brought her to ecstasy last night, yet still nothing made his heart beat as furiously as when she did that.  </p><p>“Let’s walk home this time,” she says. </p><p>He smiles, and she could have asked him for a stroll through the monster-infested, collapsed expressway between their two sectors at that point, and he probably would have jumped at the suggestion.</p><p>He squeezes her hand.  <em>Home</em>, she said.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>God, my Cloud turned out to be one epic dork in this and no, I don't apologize</p><p>If you couldn't tell already, I'm a bit of a plantser (planner + pantser), so I had initially intended for this to be the final chapter and wanted to include more sexy times, but since this chapter has gone a bit long already I went ahead and posted what I've got for now and include the rest as something of a sexy , fluffy epilogue. A sexilogue?  Yeah.</p><p>Songs I've been listening to for inspo on this fic by the way are<br/>Last Train - The Midnight<br/>Jump Into the Light - Kathy Sledge &amp; Horse Meat Disco (especially for when the credits roll)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter was supposed to be something of an Epilogue, but things started spinning wildly out of control once I started writing the porn, as it do.  Which is to say this chapter is very much E for Explicit as well as Epilogue.  </p><p>Oh, and Enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Unlike the food stalls of Wall Market, the ones dotting Sector 7 seem to be the polar opposite in nearly every respect.  Instead of garish decorations and vivid, multicolor neons, these stalls only vary in color with patches of scrap metal holding them together.  The vendors themselves even look equally quaint and plain, with matching clusters of tables and chairs outside their service windows.  </p><p>Also unlike their Wall Market analogues, the menus are simple, and the preparations were also polar opposite.  Everything here is mostly either grilled or steamed, but well-seasoned.  For your money in Wall Market, the equivalent choices would be something gimmicky, elaborate, and deep fried, and all drowning in spice, grease, and sauce.  </p><p>The food stall Tifa brings them to is one she likes just down the road from Stargazer Heights.  The place also happens to carry a couple offerings of half-decent wine, so Cloud orders them a bottle with two paper cups.  They sit together, and with the absence of ubiquitous noise and flashing lights, along with the wine, a seldom-enjoyed peace settles over Cloud as he takes in the feel of the Sector 7 neighborhood at night.   </p><p>He didn’t have it before, but he takes full advantage of the opportunity now to soak in the atmosphere as people and their conversations drift past them.   Some of them wave to Tifa, mostly customers whom she had done repairs for.</p><p>It’s...nice.  Really nice.  And with Tifa, he feels more at ease here than he had ever felt in Wall Market in all his years living there.  </p><p>Yet all things must come to an end.</p><p>“Hey, Cloud…” Tifa starts, gazing into her paper cup.</p><p>“What’s up?” he asks.</p><p>“I’ve been meaning to ask…”</p><p>She drifts off from her thought, bringing the cup up to sip the last splashes of her serving.  </p><p>“Ask what?” Cloud says.</p><p>She puts her cup down on the table and looks at him straight on.  “What are we?”</p><p>He sits up straighter, cocking his head, turning over the question in his head.  “We’re…”</p><p>Friends?   Dating?  <em>Serious?</em></p><p>His pulse throbs under his chin at that last word.  He takes another gulp of his wine.  “You want to put a label on it?” he hedges. It’s a copout, a deflection, a stall tactic.</p><p>She sighs, and it’s too sullen.  Says, “I guess I just want to know for when I introduce you to Marle.”</p><p>“Marle?”</p><p>“My landlady.”  She looks away, towards the ground, mired in through. “And we’ll definitely want to be on the same page when I introduce you to Barret.”</p><p>He frowns.  “Who’s Barret?”</p><p>She hesitates before leaning in, inviting him to do the same.  She whispers, “Remember Avalanche?”</p><p>Cloud’s brow shoots up.  “Ah.  Right.”</p><p>“He leads the cell here.  He’s originally from Corel, and lost his wife when Shinra broke the coal miner’s strike.  It’s just him and his daughter, Marlene, now.  I babysit for him sometimes.  In return, he helps watch my back.  Along with Marle.”</p><p>“Is he as much of a busybody, then?”</p><p>Tifa leans back from him, huffing.  “Be nice, Cloud.  You haven’t even met them yet.”</p><p>“I’ll do my best.”</p><p>As she huffs again, laughing into another sip of wine.  Meanwhile, Cloud lets his gaze drift in the direction of the rundown parcel.  It’s a short walk from where they sit, and in fact, he could probably see it down the road if he leaned back in his chair.  </p><p>He asks her, “Just curious, but...how much would the bar cost you to get started?”</p><p>Tifa sighs, placing her cup down.</p><p>“You don’t have to tell me,” Cloud says.</p><p>The paper rattles as she drums her fingers against the side of her cup, then moves her hand to rest on the table.  Says, “I’ve met with the owner.  He’s happy for me to take it off his hands, so the land itself isn’t all that much.  Materials, too, wouldn’t be too hard to track down with so much repurposed scrap to make use of around here.  Most of the expense is going to finding and paying good laborers.”</p><p>Cloud says, “What about this Barret guy?  You’ve chipped into his cause, so why not ask if he can help yours out this time?  Or maybe he knows some reliable people who’d be willing to do the work.”</p><p>Tifa thinks about that.  “I actually hadn’t considered that.  Maybe I will ask him.”</p><p>“Couldn’t hurt.”</p><p>“But if my estimated budget is correct, which includes comfortable wages for the work, I’m still short about 50,000 gil.”</p><p>Cloud blinks at her.  That was all?  </p><p>Last time he checked, he had at least double that in his savings. </p><p>He huffs, running a hand over his face.  Forget a bed, or a ring.  Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner?</p><p>“What’s wrong?” she asks him.</p><p>He says, “Hey, Tifa?” </p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“We should quit.”</p><p>Her expression darkens.  She’s silent for a moment before saying, “What do you mean, ‘quit’?”</p><p>Her incredulous look doesn’t dampen his resolve in the slightest.  He says, “I mean...let’s say ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to Andrea, build you your bar instead.”</p><p>Her frown deepens.  “But I just told you I don’t have enough gil yet.”</p><p>Cloud looks down at his hand, fingers drumming on the table.  He shrugs.  “You don’t, but what if I did?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Tifa-”</p><p>“<em>No</em>, Cloud.”</p><p>He startles a bit at her snappish tone.  Before he can respond, she continues, “I want to earn this. Neither of us want to rely on charity, remember?”</p><p>Cloud snorts, affronted.  “It wouldn’t be <em>charity</em>, Tifa.”</p><p>“Then what else would it be?”</p><p>He gulps down the rest of his wine.  <em>A future? </em></p><p>It’s on the tip of his tongue, but his mouth turns to cotton around it.  He looks away and says instead,  “How about looking at it as an investment?”</p><p>She sits back, her brow crimped.  “So you want a stake in the business?”</p><p>“Sure.  Something like that.”</p><p>“It’d be a pretty big one.  I feel like I’d be beholden to you, and I’m not sure whether I’d feel comfortable with that.”</p><p>Something about that sets him off, his patience tumbling over into exasperation.  “Tifa, is this really worth being so stubborn about?  I don’t actually care about the money nor controlling anything about the way you run it.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Her hand rests on the table.  Seeing it, he hesitates, but then commits to covering hers with his own.  Says, “Tifa, you know why.”</p><p>“What if I don’t know?”</p><p>He chafes a little.  A lot, really, and he snorts like a bull at her stubbornness.  </p><p>But she hasn’t pulled her hand away from his yet.  He picks it up.  He slips his palm under hers.  His heart throbs in his ears, dulled a bit by the wine, but it felt like an open door.</p><p>“Because…” He smiles wanly.   He drops his gaze to the table, glancing over his shoulder.  The amount of customers out at this hour had thankfully dwindled, but it still felt like he was seconds away from gutting himself and laying his intestines out across their food trays for everyone to see.  The knife pierces when he says,“You told me to be serious, and I am.”</p><p>And when she doesn’t reply for a long moment, he clarifies, the imaginary blade twisting. “I’m serious about <em>you.</em>  I have been since we were kids, Tifa.  And that’s what you can say to Marle, or Barret, or the whole damn city.”</p><p>Sneaking a glance, he sees her staring at their joined hands, so still that it alarms him.  </p><p>But then she bolts up from her chair.  "Come with me," she says, her grip squeezing around his hand.  </p><p>“Tifa?” he asks, but stumbles along with her when, leaving their half-finished bottle and cups, she leads him by the hand down the road toward the rundown parcel.  There, she stops before the heap.  He stands beside her, and she weaves her arm around his.   He stands there, dumbly, not sure of what else to do except wait for whatever was on her mind.</p><p>“You really want to build a bar with me?  Here?” she whispers.  He almost misses it when a warm, smoggy breeze blows over them.</p><p>There’s no one around.  Just them, the breeze, and the heap.  He tells her,  “Yeah.  A home, with you.”</p><p>She sighs, leaning her cheek into his shoulder.  Her breath skates along his skin.  </p><p>“I’m serious, too, Cloud.  About you.”</p><p>In reply, he squeezes her hand and presses his lips to her forehead.   A companionable silence settles over them.</p><p>His ears perk when she murmurs something.</p><p>“What?” he asks her.</p><p>Lifting her lips from his shoulder, “Come home with me?”</p><p>His heart pounds.  </p><hr/><p>At apartment 201, with his skin flushed with wine and desire, he kisses her as soon as the door shuts behind them.  </p><p>Tifa pulls at him, backing them up to the bed where she tips over on her back, and he follows, pouring himself across her as he swipes his tongue over hers.  Her hands rake up his sides and bunch up his shirt, and at the contact of the air to his hot skin, he pulls off her lips.</p><p>“Tifa,” he says, a question once again, hoping that she understands just how much she’s in charge here.  How much power over his life he’s ceded to her.  Hell, she’s already got every gil he’ll ever have to his name, if she only just asked.</p><p>“Yes,” she says in the space between them, her sweet breath caressing him.</p><p>“Yes, what?”</p><p>Her arms wind around the back of his neck.  She pulls him closer, their noses brushing.  She says, “I want you.”</p><p>He shivers.  Full on shivers, his breath ragged from it.  </p><p>Her smile turns devilish before she leans up and puts her lips to his ear.  “I want you,” she repeats.</p><p>A tether snaps within him, and he can’t stop his hands from finding her waist and gliding up her toned belly, fingers digging in under the band of her tank and bra.  His hands slip under, and she breathes a yes into his ear when he takes her breasts and kneads them.  She moans in his ear, and it sends a jolt straight to his cock, strong enough for him to grind his hips against her.</p><p>Her hands drop from behind his neck, and turning her lips to kiss him again, she rips off her tank and bra, allowing her suspenders to slide off.  With it, her skirt begins to drift down her thighs.  He lets go of her amazing tits to lean back and peel his own shirt off, but just as he’s about to dive back in for more blazing kisses, she stops him with a press of fingers to his bare chest, just above his heart.</p><p>“You drive me so crazy,” she says, looking him over, admiring all the results of his strict adherence to Jules’ workout and diet regimens-- aside from the odd cheats of chocobean pies, and occasional bottle of wine shared with your girlfriend.</p><p><em>Girlfriend.</em>  He breaks into a grin, bashfully looking aside to one of her band posters plastered over the wall. His attention snaps back to her when she sits herself up, pushing him to sit on the edge of her bed.  </p><p>“Stay there,” she tells him.  Her brow rises.  “And keep your hands under your thighs.”</p><p>It’s then he thinks he might die before the night was over, his heart unable to pump enough blood to his brain.  She stands before him and slowly bends over to loosen one of her boots.  Kicking it off, she does the other next.  Then she stands, sliding her hands over her skirt hanging loosely off her hips without the benefit of her suspenders, letting his fingers wedge in under the hem of her leggings.  Although sad to see them go, he doesn’t dare interrupt as she peels them down with agonizing leisure.  </p><p>He can’t decide where to look when her eyes snap to his when, after casting aside her leggings, her hands find her skirt, and with the same deliberate pace, strips it off.  The black garment slides down every inch of her creamy thighs so exquisitely slow.  It’s a tease, he realizes belatedly, like an idiot who ought to burn his honeybee tuxedo for being so unbelievably daft.</p><p>Perhaps not <em>daft</em> so much as painfully, unbelievably turned on, his higher brain function next to minimal, his skin explosive when she finally steps out of her skirt and approaches him and sits her incredible naked body across his lap.  He flinches with his hands still tucked under his thighs, practically vibrating with his restraint when her breasts press into him and she slides her hands over his shoulders, and crushes her lips to his.  </p><p>He still doesn’t touch her, even though he’s vibrating out of his skin.  He does gasp her name, desperate and throaty, when she pulls off his lips.  </p><p>She seems to either take pity, or perhaps is impressed with his good behavior, because a shallow smile comes to her lips before she’s kissing the column of his neck, his collar, then further down his bare torso.   He knows it’s coming, but when the image of her kneeling before his straining erection sears into his brain, he can’t keep looking at her.  He’ll come in seconds.  He rips his gaze away, tipping his chin back to stare up at the patchwork ceiling.</p><p>But then the worst happens.  She says his name.</p><p>“Cloud.”</p><p>Her voice beckons him, thick and syrupy like the air in his nostrils, and he has no choice but to look at her now.  </p><p>“Watch me.”</p><p>Shit.  Shit, shit, <em>shit.</em>  He watches as her hands rake along his thighs towards the fly of his trousers.  His breath shudders louder and louder as his watching turns into staring as her fingers deftly thread the button through its loop before finding the zipper.  He’s going to come like a goddamned teenager before she’s even gotten him out of his pants.  </p><p>“<em>Tifa,</em>” he croaks.  </p><p>She’s only peeled his fly apart, with his bulge swelling out under his briefs, when she stills her movements.  A tinge of worry affects her expression when she looks up at him.  “Is this okay?”</p><p>His palpable excitement flags when a touch of hurt crosses over her face as well.  Shit, he was an idiot, but how could he explain the problem?</p><p>“Come here?” he asks her.</p><p>Still visibly distressed, she rises and slips into his lap again, her core touching his clothed groin, the heat of which punching out a groan from his throat.  </p><p>“Sorry,” he says. “It’s just...you’re too <em>good</em>,” he tries, knowing the words weren’t quite right.</p><p>“But I hadn’t done much of anything.”</p><p>He pecks her on the lips.  “I know.  I’m just…”</p><p>She says, “You’re really tense.”</p><p><em>As a goddamned snare drum</em>, he wants to say.  His breath shudders out again, clear evidence of her assessment.</p><p>“It’s okay,” she says, smoothing her hands over his shoulders, winding through his hair.  She kisses his forehead as if he were a child, and he wants to shrivel up and die from the embarrassment.  Especially when she adds,  “We don’t have to.”</p><p>He shakes his head.  Something shakes loose with the motion, and once his words start to tumble out, he can't stop them:  “I want to, Tifa.  I want you, so badly.  You’re everything to me, and I just...I still haven’t fully wrapped my head around the fact that you’re <em>here</em>, and that you want me, too.  I guess I’m just...freaking out a little? That’s all.”</p><p>Playing with a spike of his hair, she asks, “Then what was last night about?  You seemed pretty sure of yourself then.”</p><p>He blinks.  It <em>had</em> been trivially easy to ignore himself when he was buried face first inside her pussy.   He licks over his lips, an idea coming to him like an epiphany.  “That’s because...can I touch you?” </p><p>She purses her lips, but she nods as she brushes a stray lock of his hair behind his ear.  He only waits a second for the blood to rush back to his fingers after he extracts them from under his thighs before he cards them up across Tifa’s bare back, indulging in the feel of her smooth skin and solid muscles.  She groans at the contact, and he forces another out of her when he leans down and captures a nipple in his mouth.</p><p>“Cloud,” she moans, bucking her hips, but his hands hold her fast against his mouth, suckling and nipping at the pebble in his mouth.  He slips his hand from her back to roll the other in between his fingers, causing her to sigh. </p><p>He switches nipples, suckling with the same intensity, encouraging her to grind down on him.   He sucks and flicks his tongue over her until her scent floods his nose, and the spot where she sits over his briefs grows damp with her arousal.  It’s so fucking beautiful, she’s so fucking beautiful, and eventually he breaks off from her breasts to finally get a hand on the hem of his pants and briefs and start tugging, wanting the confining things as far away from him as possible.  </p><p>She responds as if she were reading his mind, lifting her hips along with his so he could wrench them down and kick them off with his boots. He resumes his attention to her marvelous chest, and with their shared telepathy, she also wastes no time wrapping a hand around his straining cock.  He moans around her nipple in relief.  She strokes him firmly and languidly, and he feels so much calmer now that he can please her with his lips around her.  She could play with him, and him with her forever, just like this, and he’d love every second until he collapsed.</p><p>Her breath comes out hot against his hairline when she shifts, releasing him and raising herself up until he pulls off her nipple and looks at her.  She glances down to his cock.  A question.</p><p>He almost laughs.  He fell in love with a truly stubborn woman.</p><p>But he’s a lot calmer now.  More relaxed now that he’s pleased her some.  So he acquiesces with a short, curt nod.  </p><p>She slips down again to her knees, and it’s still the most intense image he’ll ever see in his life, but this time he doesn’t feel like a bomb about to go off in her face if she simply breathes on him.  But when her breath does tingle across his cock, the only thing that explodes from him is a pathetic-sounding whine.</p><p>“Look at me,” she asks him again.  Rallying his every last shred of self-control, he keeps his eyes firmly affixed on her as her breasts brush along his cock, so soft and wonderful, before her eyes flicker up to his.  Her eyes are pits of arousal, locks of her hair cascading as she leans forward and puts wet lips to his tip.</p><p>He gasps, releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding, then moans when he feels her tongue swipe across him.  “Fuck,” he breathes.  He curses again when those lips start to envelope him in their heavenly warmth, enthusiasm laced with a little hesitance as she takes in his girth, halfway to his root before pulling back.  And when she descends again, then again, it’s further, wetter, and hotter each time, and he can’t stop staring at her now even if a planet-sized comet were to fall on top of his head.</p><p>When she moans around his cock, adding to the warm pressure and wet noises, he can’t look anymore when his eyes roll back into their sockets.  It’s so fucking amazing, but he doesn’t touch her with respect to her earlier request to keep his hands away, not that he wanted to rush <em>anything</em> about the gift she’s determined to give him.  He kind of loves that she’s taking her time, getting to know his shape and taste with her own little moans and wiggles of her hips, her scent on the air.  </p><p>It hits him like a pile of bricks that she’s getting off on this, and suddenly he’s about to come.  When her next suck squeezes him at just the right intensity, his hand snaps out to her shoulder.  “Tifa!” </p><p>He stops her at just the last second, throbbing almost painfully at denying himself his finish.  His eyes had snapped shut, and when he’s able to open them, she’s looking up at him in question.  </p><p>“Okay?” she asks.</p><p>In reply, he stands, encouraging her to stand as well so that they’re face to face, chest to chest.  It feels too much like forever since he’s pleased her, so he kisses her, hot and wet, running his hand down her flushed and sweaty abdomen on a mission until he finds her core. </p><p>“Fuck, you really were getting off on that,” he says against her lips.</p><p>She squeaks when he suddenly spins her, pushing her to bend over across the bed, and that’s when he collapses to his knees to get a full, unobstructed view of her glorious ass.  His hands grasp and knead the flesh of it, and she moans with the contact, and again when he leans forward and hovers with his lips mere centimeters from where he’s dripping for him.</p><p>“Cloud,” she says.  He leans until he can see her face, her cheek resting against her bedsheets. </p><p>And when he sees how her long hair is splayed in every direction, her cheeks flushed and her eyes glistening and fixed only on him, his heart is just so...<em>full.</em>  So full of her, it hurts.</p><p>“I love you, Tifa,” he says.</p><p>He then dives into bliss, tongue and lips threading around her swollen clit.  </p><p>She gasps, then <em>wails</em> into her sheets, and he has a passing thought about her neighbors.  That thought quickly smothers under the avalanche of her exquisite taste bursting across his senses. He loves her.  He loves her, he <em>loves</em> her.</p><p>Each suck and swipe makes her shudder and writhe, bend and bow.  He spreads her ass so he can get in as deep as possible, his nose buried inside her cunt, and with a thumb he presses the tip against her asshole.  It causes her to wail again, thrusting back against him.</p><p>“Cloud!  Cloud, please,” she begs him, almost a sob.  He’s off of her instantly, a jolt of concern spearing his heart.</p><p>“You okay?” he asks, puffing as he catches his breath.</p><p>She turns around, and it’s then he sees that her flushed cheeks are damp, and her eyes are glistening.</p><p>He scrambles, his hands flying away from her.  “Shit, did I hurt you?”</p><p>“No,” she says quickly, and the relief lets him breathe again, but her lips still have a tremble to them that upsets him.  “Just...what you said…”</p><p>Oh.  Right.  What seemed like such an easy, natural thing to say a couple of minutes ago now seems like a splinter caught in his throat.  Not that he would take it back, but the ache in his chest somehow feels different now.</p><p>She scoots back until she’s fully lying on her bed, and opens her arms.  “Come here, please?”</p><p>That, at least, he can do for her.  He slides over her, putting weight onto his side so as to not crush her, his cock grazing her belly as her hands come around him.  He kisses her, and she kisses him, and he’s not sure how many of the next minutes they spend just doing that.  Kissing one another, relishing in the full contact of their skin.</p><p>Eventually, her hand snakes down and finds his cock.  He breaks from the kiss to moan into her shoulder.  </p><p>“I want this,” she tells him.  </p><p>He lifts his chin.  “You’re sure?”</p><p>“More than anything.”</p><p>She strokes his cock again, and it prompts him to remember his trip to the pharmacy earlier that day.  Pecking her on the lips, he says, “One sec.”</p><p>He extricates himself to locate his trousers, and there’s no stopping telltale crinkle of a condom from filling the tiny apartment.</p><p>“Someone was optimistic,” Tifa remarks, propping herself up by the elbow.  The sight of her long, gorgeous legs strikes like a horsewhip on his haste to get back to her.  There’s a crease to her brow now, though, her playfulness blunted as she looks at the condom in his hand.  He has a flash of panic, then, when it finally hits him as to how it might look.</p><p>He cups her cheek.  “Tifa. I don’t buy condoms nor subject myself to smartass pharmacists for just anyone,” he says, trying for a little humor.  For his nerves or for hers, he’s not sure.</p><p>“It’s alright, Cloud.  It’s not a big deal.”</p><p>She says it like she should have expected him to have slept around.  It wouldn't be a huge stretch of logic given his career.  That it hangs unaddressed, like a foulness worse than Midgar's smog, does seem like kind of a big deal to <em>him</em>.  He didn't want for her to have that sort of idea about him, even in passing.</p><p>“No, Tifa.  I mean, I was bound to learn more than a few things from years of working at the Inn, but you’re...this is my first time,” he admits.  And it truly is.  He absorbed enough advice from his colleagues and had to entertain the some odd client every now and then, but his status as a manager made the latter expectation rather rare.  Even then, he never so much as fooled around with anyone else.  It felt too much like shitting where he ate-- although present company had been excluded.  <em>Very</em> much excluded. </p><p>The difference is nobody else had been even close to being right.  “Because nobody else is <em>you</em>,” he insists, tearing apart the condom wrapper as if to punctuate.  </p><p>His erection had flagged a little while he had been talking and stewing with his tortured thoughts.  But he pauses in his effort to extract the condom when her hand closes around his wrist.</p><p>“Hey, I believe you.  It’s really okay,” she says, pulling him toward her as she lies back onto the mattress.  He shudders when her legs spread for him, and she runs her nails up his back.   “We both want this, don’t we?  That’s all that matters.”</p><p><em>Fuck, yes</em>, he agrees wholeheartedly.  Her words sink into him, and soothe him like a balm.  He leans to the side, making short work of preparing himself before he slides over her again, and settles his cockhead against her folds.</p><p>Her legs wrap around his waist.  It’s the encouragement he needs to press in more, and more, until he’s sinking inside her.  The warmth, the heat utterly obliterates his ability to think in any sort of language, instead answering her carnal gasp and moan with one of his own, rolling into a growl as he hilts himself.  She keeps staring at him, and him at her, and well after their hips meet.</p><p>He blurts her name and kisses her.  Sloppy and on the side of too wet as he starts to move back his hips.  He presses forward again, slow, so overwhelmed by the fact he was making love to Tifa.  His brain feels like it’s starved with oxygen, probably because his breathing started coming in ragged gasps against her lips after only a couple strokes.  He wants to look down and see where they’re connected, but he’s sweating, straining to keep himself from coming apart all too soon...but the threads keep snapping one by one.</p><p>“Cloud, wait.”</p><p>He shudders to a halt inside her, startled as he pulls his gaze up to meet her, terrified he had fucked up.  Instead, he hand comes to his cheek and she says, “Let’s roll over.”</p><p>He huffs, puzzled at her, but he turns with her anyway.  He slips out of her as they move until she’s hovering her molten heat over his cock again.   She sits up straight, the wisps of her long hair sweeping his thighs.  Lifting her hands, she cups her breasts and says, “Touch me.”</p><p>His hands fly to her.  He kneads her breasts and rolls her nipples.  She starts to moan again with the touch.  “More,” she asks.</p><p>She says it while her hand descends to her clit, and she begins to rub herself in tight circles.  He almost doesn’t want to obey her, because he could just watch her do that all night.  But his fingers follow her lead, leaving one hand on her breast while his other overlaps hers on her clit.  He’s a quick study, and as soon as she begins to writhe and smile in bliss, his heartbeat calms, and his breathing starts to come down from its frantic state.  Entranced by the flush on her cheeks, the rest of his tension melts away, and he slumps back into the mattress. </p><p>“Cloud,” she says, and he thinks he might drown in her eyes.  “I love you, too.”</p><p>She lines him up with her core, then sinks down on him.</p><p>“Tifa!” rings out from his lips, and he can’t help the little aborted thrust he makes, but otherwise it’s so much more beautiful and exquisite than the first time he entered her, and it utterly blows him away that she knew exactly what he needed in order to enjoy this with her-- in a way that he didn’t even realize until she gave him such a mind-bending, transcendent revelation.</p><p>The shock to his soul had thrown him off of playing with her, but he resumes with a renewed ferocity as she lifts her hips again and sinks back down.  She throws her head back when he gets his legs under her and thrusts, drawing out of her the most primal sounds from her.  One of her breasts swings free, and it galvanizes him forward so he can latch his lips over her nipple again.  He thrusts into her, meeting her hips on the downstroke, and just like that, their hips start to find their rhythm as they collide in the most sensuous sounds of skin against skin. He says her name again against her breasts, his heart screaming,<em> I love you. </em></p><p>He’s about to come again, and after holding back for so much and so long, he says <em>Tifa</em> as half a plea, half a prayer.  He rubs her, lying back again onto the bed to thrust deeper and rougher, and it’s just the right course of action, because it only takes a few more thrusts before she cries out his name, and snaps.</p><p>She comes, quaking, her walls both drawing him in and drawing him out.  He bucks, shouting with the force of his orgasm as he erupts into her almost immediately after. His hips feel like they’ll never stop moving, even after the last waves leave him.   Next thing he knows is her hands pinning his shoulders to the bed, and her hair sweeping through the sweat of his brow as she leans down to kiss him.  It could have been a few seconds or a few minutes by the time Tifa rolls off of him.</p><p>They clean themselves up, then slip under her bedsheets, sighing at the renewed contact of skin.  Of <em>connection.</em>  There, Cloud floats in the blissful plane between sleep and consciousness as he holds Tifa to him, arm draped over hers as she tucks herself into his chest.  They stay like that for a while, the apartment silent except for the sound of their breathing.   </p><p>Just as he thinks he might drop off, Tifa says, “I don’t think we should quit.”</p><p>He doesn’t bother opening his eyes.  “Hmm?”</p><p>“The Honeybee Inn.  Andrea.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“I think we should be honest with him about our plans but...I wouldn’t feel good at all about leaving him in a lurch like that.”</p><p>Cloud kisses the top of her head.  He says, “You’re way too kind.”</p><p>“What?  You don’t think it’s the right thing to do?”</p><p>“I didn’t say that.  So we’ll give him, what, a few months notice?”</p><p>“Something like that.”</p><p>He yawns.  Says, “Works for me.”   </p><p>Andrea, of all the people he had ever met in his life, knew how to adapt.  He would be fine either way, but Tifa did have a point.  Burning bridges like that was usually never a great idea.   “So wise, my Tifa,” he murmurs, the vestiges of wine in his system clearly having something of a last hurrah.</p><p>He thinks he feels her lips press lightly under his chin, but sleep claims him before he can decide for sure. </p><hr/><p>The next morning, at the bottom of the steps and three doors down, an older lady greets him with a stare both chilly and fiery all at once.   Her gray hair is swept up like the brush of a broomstick, and beside her, a dog stands guard, calm but alert to his presence.</p><p>Marle, he learns, when Tifa greets her good morning.  “Marle, this is Cloud,” she tells her, standing next to his frozen form.  He thaws instantly when her hand slips into his.</p><p>The intimate gesture doesn’t escape the landlady’s notice.  “That’s nice.  Need I remind you that my walls aren’t soundproofed in the slightest?”</p><p>Tifa hides her face into Cloud’s shoulder.  </p><p>“Sorry.  We’ll be more mindful,” Cloud offers, doing his best to smooth over the old bird’s feathers.</p><p>“Uh-huh,” Marle says, clicking her tongue.  “For your sake, I just hope you aren’t nearly as thoughtless when it comes to my dear, dear girl.”</p><p>“He’s not,” Tifa tells her. </p><p>But already the crone’s gaze narrows at him, piercing through his every atom.  “You had better take care of her,” she says pointedly.</p><p>“I can do a pretty good job myself, you know,” Tifa says.</p><p>Marle glances over to her, her expression softening.  “I know.”  It hardens back again instantly when she whips back to him.  “But better him than you. If you hurt her, young man, I’ll take it out of your hide and then some, you hear me?”</p><p>“Loud and clear,” Cloud tells her.  </p><p>Satisfied for the time being, she releases him from her scrutiny.  With that ordeal over with, they part ways at Sector 7’s gates, with plans to reunite at the Honeybee Inn once more that evening.  </p><p>At Tifa’s urging, Cloud waits until they are together again before they submit their request for a meeting with Andrea at his earliest availability.  Surprisingly, Andrea agrees to meet with them that night after their shifts.  </p><p>That’s how they find themselves seated in his office, still dressed in their tuxedos, explaining to Andrea their joint decision.  <em>Disappointing</em> is Andrea’s choice of word, but he also he tells them he isn’t all that surprised at their decision.  He figured odds were at least fifty-fifty after they had both discovered and shared <em>their lusters</em>...or so he says.  Knowing him, Cloud has the impression Andrea is even more disappointed than he lets on.</p><p>Nonetheless, they mutually agree on six months notice.  Enough time for them to prepare the troops and train up a successor.   </p><p>“And once your time here is over,” Andrea says.  “I must insist that you visit me for dance on stage every once in a while.”  </p><p>He leans forward.  With a wiggle of his brow, he adds, “<em>Topside,</em> of course.”</p><hr/><p>Before they go home together for the night - back to Cloud’s place this time - Andrea also gives Tifa the business card of the architect he had been in touch with.</p><p>“Connections really are everything, aren’t they?” Tifa asks Cloud later as she holds the card up and flips it over. </p><p>Cloud smiles at her.  <em>Connection, too</em>, he adds in his mind. </p><p>“That they are,” he says before rolling over her on his new bed, and smothering her laughter with a kiss. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hey you know what?  I'm done.  The End!</p><p>Holy F this whole fic was a RIDE to put together, and if you have made it this far, I sincerely thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed how I presented these two dorks in love in this crazy AU.  And to all of you who left feedback throughout this fic, YOU THE MVPs without a doubt.  I might not have cranked this out nearly as efficiently without your words of encouragement!  I also probably wouldn't have let this get as horny as it is corny.  Chorny, as I've dubbed it...</p><p>Anyway, I would of course LOVE to hear any and all feedback, even if it's just that I brightened your day a bit.  Regardless, may you all shine forth and luster in whatever you do! 😀✨</p>
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